Full text of "The Queen v. Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant : (Specially reported)"

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Queen's Bencli Division, June 18tli, 1877.
THE QUEEN

CHARLES BRADLAUGH

AND

ANNIE BESANT.

(Specially Reported.)

LOND ON :

FREETIIOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.G.

LONDON

PRINTED BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH AND ANNIE BESANT,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.G.

PREFACE.

It is as a contribution to the discussion of the Population
Question that we issue this report of the prosecution
against ourselves for publishing Dr. Charles Knowlton's
pamphlet, entitled " Fruits of Philosophy." Dr. Knowl-
ton's pamphlet, although an ably and carefully written
essay by a thoughtful and scientific man, is not, of itself, of
vital importance ; its importance lies in the fact that it is
condemned — says Lord Chief Justice Cockburn — because
it advocates prudential restraint to population, while also
advocating early marriage. It is the advocacy of pruden-
tial checks after marriage that is now said to be a punish-
able offence. Many a better book than that of Dr. Knowl-
ton might be written on the same subject to-day, for we
have had 40 years of scientific improvement since " Fruits
of Philosophy " was penned ; until, however, the judgment
against Knowlton is reversed, no better book can be pub-
lished, for doctors will not write, and publishers will not
sell, a work which may bring them within the walls of a gaol.
It was for the sake of free discussion that we published the
assailed pamphlet when its former seller yielded to the
pressure put upon him by the police ; it was not so much in
defence of this pamphlet, as to make the way possible for
others dealing with the same topic, that we risked the penalty
which has fallen upon us. The accounts of the trial which
have appeared in the daily and weekly papers have brought to
the knowledge of thousands a great social question of whose
existence they had no idea before this prosecution took
place. Once more a cause has triumphed by the fall of its
defenders. Once more a new truth has been spread every-

PREFACE.

where by its persecutors, and has gained a hearing from the
dock that it could never have won from the platform. It
had been thought by many that the right to free discussion
had been won by the gallant struggles of the earlier half of
the present century ; it was never dreamed that Lord
CampbelFs Act might be strained to include medical and
scientific works ; its author scouted the possibility of such
misuse, and himself limited its object to the seizure of the
foul literature of passion and sensuality. By the judgment
in this cause every medical bookseller is put in jeopardy,
and medical authors must find their own safety in the high
price — and consequent restricted circulation — of their
works. Ignorance has again become a cardinal virtue, and
the tree of knowledge is again guarded by the fiery sword
of the law.

What will be the ultimate issue of the struggle is certain;
this battle will end, as every other such battle has ended,
in the triumph of a Free Press. There is but one limit to
that Freedom, and that is that slander and libel should be
easily punishable by the law, so that the pen should not be
permitted to vent private malice in assault on private reputa-
tion. The discussion of a question of ethics, of social
science, of medicine, is an attack on no one; no one's repu-
tation is injured by it; it can have nothing in it of the nature
of slander. Such discussion has always been the medium
of progress, and the right to it must be won at all hazards.

Charles Bradlaugh.
Annie Besant.

THE QUEEN

CHARLES BRADLAUGH & ANNIE BESANT.

The Lord Chief Justice took his seat at 10.30 a.m.
precisely. The Solicitor-General, Sir Hardinge Giffard, Mr.
Douglas Straight, and Mr. Mead appeared for the prosecu-
tion ; Mrs. Besant and Mr. Bradlaugh appeared in person.
On calling over by ballot the list of special jurymen, the
following gentlemen answered to their names : — Alfred
Upward, 16, Linden Gardens, N. H., gentleman; Augustus
Voelcker, 39, Argyle Read, chemist ; Captain Alfred Henry
Waldy, 9, Stanhope Gardens, esquire; Thomas Richard
Walker, 31, Colville Gardens, bank manager; Robert
Wallace, 32, Lancaster Road North, gentleman ; Edmund
Waller, 33, St. Mary Abbott's Terrace, gentleman ; Arthur
Walter, 15, Queen's Gate Terrace, gentleman; Charles
Alfred Walter, 7, Holland Road, gentleman ; John Ward,
79, Ladbroke Grove, N.H., gentleman; Arthur Warre, 109,
Onslow Square, Brompton, gentleman ; and the two
talesmen, who were afterwards added to make up the number,
were George Skinner and Charles Wilson.

The Special Jury list having thus been called over, there
were only eleven persons present who answered, and the
eleventh made an application to the judge to be excused
from serving as he was the director of a public company.

Mr. Bradlaugh, rising, said : Before the jury are sv/orn,
my lord — I think this will be the proper time — I have a
motion to make to your lordship. The motion is to quash
the indictment, on the ground

The Lord Chief Justice : I do not think I can allow
that. I am sitting here in 7iisi pius.

A 2

Mr. Bradlaugh: My lord, the 14th and 15th Victoria,
cap. ICQ, says, ^^That any objection to any indictment for
any formal defect apparent on the face of the indictment
shall be taken by demurrer or motion to quash such indict-
ment before the jury shall be sworn, and not afterwards,'' and
it is for a defect on the face of the indictment that I move to
quash it.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then you should move m
hanco^ and not in this court. Surely that contemplates a
motion in banco. What do you say, Mr. Solicitor?

The Solicitor-General : Yes, my lord, that is, as I take
it, the meaning of these statutes. These pleadings here are
in the Crown Office, and if the defendant was intending to
demur he should have moved in that way, or by motion m.
court.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not intend to demur, my lord, but
I do intend to submit that, under the statute, my right tO'
move to quash the indictment is clear, and I should respect-
fully insist

The Lord Chief Justice : Well, I will reserve that
point.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then your lordship will reserve that
point. Need I state to you the grounds ?

The Lord Chief Justice : No. I will reserve the
point. If it is competent for me to hear the motion at all
this will preserve your right.

Mr. Bradlaugh : That will give us all I wish to obtain.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, I presume that you will reserve
it for me as well ?

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh, yes.

Mr. Bradlaugh (handing in the Attorney-General's
w^arrant) : Then I will pray a tales.

On this, the usher w^as sent for one common juryman to
make up the mystic twelve.

The jury were about to be sworn, when

The Lord Chief Justice said : This gentleman has a
strong wish not to serve, as he is the director of a public
company (indicating the juryman who had asked to be
excused). If you have no objection to raise I will release
him, as a tales has been prayed by Mr. Bradlaugh.

The Solicitor-General : If your lordship pleases,

A second common juryman was then added, and the Jury
were sworn in the usual way.

Mr. Bradlaugh, handing up a number of copies of the

" Fruits of Philosophy," said : It may be convenient for
the Court — I have spoken to the Sohcitor-General on the
subject — if your lordship does not object — for the jury to
have each a copy of the work in question.

The Solicitor-General : It will be very convenient
indeed to do so, and it will render unnecessary the reading
of certain passages out of the book.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is absolutely essential that
the jury shall be thoroughly possessed not only of the sub-
stance but of the actual language of the book.

The Solicitor-General : I quite agree in that, and
cannot object.

^ Mr. Mead, as the junior counsel, having formally stated
the pleadings.

The Solicitor-General then commenced his address
to the jury. He said : Gentlemen of the jury, the two
defendants before you are indicted for having published
an obscene libel, which is the form, according to our Eng-
lish jurisprudence, the criminal courts adopt for the purpose
of preventing the dissemination of any matter which is
calculated to destroy or corrupt the morals of the people,
and, perhaps, it is not altogether immaterial that I should
narrate to you, in the first instance, the mode in v/hich this
prosecution comes before you, because I cannot help feel-
ing, and the magistrates who have moved in this prosecution
probably could not help feeling, that, in itself, it is (I mean
the prosecution) a thing which may produce mischief. I
think, before the end of the case, it will be found it has
produced mischief already; but the circumstances v/ere
such that those who, to some extent, possessed authority in
the City of London, were put in the dilemma of either per-
mitting this publication to be sown broadcast over the
whole of the City, and to be placed in the hands of any
person, however young, or else to institute this prosecu-
tion. Now, the circumstances were these : It would appear
that a Mr. Watts had published (I believe some years
ago) a book which he called the " Fruits of Philosophy ;
or, the Private Companion of Young Married Couples.^'
Probably, gentlemen, you never heard of it, and, hap-
pily, I think, I may say, the world had never heard of
it until it was published in Bristol, and became the sub-
ject of an indictment there, and attention having been
called to it, the defendants appear to have come to the con-
clusion that the result of that case was unsatisfactory, and

they determined to test the question whether persons were
not entitled to publish that book (substantially it is the
same book, as you will see presently) ; and, accordingly,
they appear, having published a new edition, to have sent a
memorandum to the magistrates and to the police in these
words : — "From the Freethought Publishing Company, 28,
Stonecutter Street, Farringdon Street, E.G. All orders to
be addressed to the manager, Mr. W. J. Ramsey. March
23rd, 1877. To Mr. Martin, Guildhall.— Charles Brad-
laugh and Annie Besant will attend at the above address to-
morrow, from four to five o'clock, to sell the enclosed
pamphlet." That is the pamphlet which is the subject-
matter of this indictment. Then they sent a similar notice
to Detective-Sergeant William Green : — Charles Brad-
laugh and Annie Besant will attend at the above address
to-morrow, from four to five, to sell the enclosed pamphlet
and this notice is sent to you officially to report to the
superior person from whom you received instructions to
prosecute in the case." Well, gentlemen, upon receiving
this notice they proceeded to the place in question, without
receiving any instructions ; but the authorities subsequently
confirmed their action in the matter. They proceeded to
the place, and purchased some of these pamphlets ; and the
result is, that the question which, in truth, has to be
decided by this indictm.ent, is, whether or not the defen-
dants were entided to sell for sixpence this book, which I
hold in my hand, to every person to whom it may occuk
that it is interesting, or amusing, or exciting to the morbid^
appetite, to purchase a book of this description. Upon the
question (it sometimes is the question, of course, upon,
which matters of this sort turn) whether there has been any
publication of the pamphlet, no question will arise here.
The publication is of an absolute character. The sum-
sought to be charged is sixpence ; and the only question,,
therefore, which will remain for your decision, will be
whether or not this is an obscene book.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is that quite so ? Is it not
that the language, if it cannot be called obscene, is such
that its effect might be to vitiate public morals ; and
although the work in point of language may be perfectly
free from any objection, still I think that then, in point of
law, it would be a libel. A work may not be obscene, it
may not be prurient, it may not be open to objection in
that respect, and yet it might tend to subvert public.

morality. I do not know that by public morality we mean
only those rules which regulate the intercourse of the sexes.
It involves every rule of human conduct. If a person, in a
book, were to teach a thing recommended in certain cases,
assassination, you could not characterise that as an obscene
book. It would yet be open to the objection that the book
tended to subvert public morals in the other accepta-
tion.

The Solicitor-General : I was using the word obscene
rather in the sense in which your lordship has used it — in
the sense of depraving morals ; and in the case which I
shall have to quote from, your lordship there uses the v/ords :
Not using the word ' obscene ' in the sense of involving
'any coarseness or vulgarity of expression, but as something
which is calculated to destroy the morals,'' in giving judg-
ment in the case of the Queen v, Hicklin, vol. 3 of the
Reports of the Queen's Bench, page 371. That is the
passage from which I am about to quote. The report
commences at page 360, and youi lordship, in giving judg-
ment, said : " I think the test of obscenity is this : whether
the tendency of the matter charged is to deprave and
corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral
influences, and into whose hands it is likely to fall."

The Lord Chief Justice : What v/as the character of
the book ?

The Solicitor-General : The character of the book
there was of this sort, that it was a publication of a
Protestant society, which had taken a very strong view
against the impurity of certain questions asked and ideas
suggested by the Roman Catholic priests in the confessional,
and it quoted a variety of the doctors of the Romish Church,
Sanchez, Loyola, and a great many others, and the Protestant
Society in question had published this book for the purpose
of showing how wicked and immoral and depraving was the
institution, and it seems to me that your lordship's words
there are perfectly applicable to this case. The contention
of obscenity seems to me to be exactly what I would suggest
to the jury as applicable to the case before the court. Now,
gentlemen, the book in question, as you will see, is a book
comprehending in the edition with which we are dealing,
forty-seven pages ; and that which had been described in
the original book from which it is taken and which gave rise
to this prosecution, as " the private companion of young
married couples," becomes in the edition to which your

attention will be called an "Essay on the Population
Question,'^ and the nature of the book — before I read
any part of it, appears to me to be this — the writer contends
that it is not an improper thing to gratify any animal
passion which human nature may be susceptible of, that the
gratification of the animal instincts in the commerce of
the sexes produces in a great many instances an over-
crowded population. The writer appears to contend that
for the cure of that evil, and for the purpose of enabhng
persons to gratify their passions without that evil being so
great as it is, and may be, in the world, it is lawful and
proper, and expedient, to disseminate among the people a
minute description of physical means whereby the popula-
tion may be checked, that the commerce of the sexes may
be permitted to continue, and that by various means which
he minutely describes, the result of conception, and the
consequent birth of children, may be averted.

The Lord Chief Justice : I think it is hardly right to
say that unless you introduce another element into the argu-
ment, which is that the restrictions which another celebrated
writer on population pressed as the means of correcting
the evil of excessive population was the restriction upon
marriage, and the author of this book says : " That is
wrong. Marriage — and marriage at an early stage of life
— should be encouraged but he argues ^,hat, as the effect
of early marriage is to increase population, so those arti-
ficial means of preventing population should be resorted to,
but you must not leave out one element of his reasoning,
that he insists upon marriage, and does not profess to
suggest these means of checking population as the reason
why marriage may be dispensed with.

The Solicitor-General : I did not mean to represent
that there was an actual mention of commerce between the
sexes without marriage. Whether or not it might obviously
suggest itself to persons who wished to gratify their passions
without marriage, I will not say. I was about to say that
marriage is continually mentioned in the course of the
book. This was what I should be disposed myself to
suggest as a mere colourable introduction of that which in
terms suggests marriage, but which it will be for the jury, if
they look at the whole scope and tendency of the reasoning,
to consider whether it is more than a colourable — the in-
troduction of the word marriage, from time to time, in the
progress of the argument. But the argument wiiich I was

dealing with was the mode in which it was suggested that
the evils of over-population could be avoided by physical
checks. (The Solicitor-General then briefly alluded to the
contents of pages ii — 18, i8 — 33, 44, and 38 — 41.) That
is the nature of the book. The mode in which the subject
is treated I am afraid you must hear more minutely here-
after. That is the scope and tenor of the arguments. As
my lord has pointed out to you (and, indeed, as I had
intended to point out to you), all this is put before
the reader under — what, I should say, in speaking plainly —
under the guise of philosophy. The writer professes to
entertain deep sympathies with the poor curate, and the
artisan, who is, by the circumstances of his life, unable to
afford the means of the care and rearing of an enormous
family. The book, I think it may be said, is carefully
guarded from any vulgarity of expression ; the whole tone
of it is, as I say, under the guise of philosophy and medical
science. Further, it may be said that the two defendants,
who are the publishers, in the preface here, say that they
are neither of them doctors, that they do not affirm the
medical truths which are laid down by the author of the
book, who, perhaps, I should have told you before, was a
Mr. Knowlton, a medical man, and they profess, therefore,
not to entirely assent to, or advocate, all the medical truths
which the writer puts forward in the book ; and, further,
with respect to the philosophical proem which precedes the
book, they profess to disagree with the propositions which
appear in that part of the work.

The Lord Chief Justice : The book has been pub-
lished in America, and was first introduced in this countr}'
forty years ago, I think ?

The Solicitor-General : I beheve so, my lord. They
further proceed to say they do not agree with some of the
propositions in the philosophical proem, and which I rather
think they say are mistakes. But what underlies apparently
the whole thing, and what may be taken to be the principle
of the defence here as far as one gathers is this : that it is a
subject of interest, that the subject of the population, and the
relations between the sexes, may involve a subject of deep
national interest, and, therefore, the defence appears to be of
this character : although we do not agree with some of the
medical knowledge, and although we do not agree with all
the philosophical proem, yet, as it is a subject of interest we
claim a right to pubUsh it, because, in the conflict of opinion,

and the discussion which may ensue, the truth ultimately
may be elicited. That appears to me to be the main pro-
position underlying the whole of the contention, that they
have a right to publish this work. Gentlemen, I will now
read to you the preface, which will put you into possession^
at all events, of the ground upon which the writer, or the
publisher rather, in this case, feels himself at liberty to
publish this broadcast all over the country.

(The Solicitor-General here read the preface at length,
and, when he came to the words where the change of the
sub-title is spoken of, he said : Gentlemen, that is the title
which I will remind you was in its original form — " The
Private Companion of Young Married Couples " — and that
is now omitted. The Solicitor-General then read the
preface to the end.)

Now, gentlemen, I have thought it right that you should be
at once in possession of the defence which it is intended to-
suggest for the publication of the work in question^ because
I think it will be found that what may be called the ultimate
object and intention of the persons publishing is not the
question v/hich you have to determine. Although there are
many passages in this work which might be the subject of
unfavourable commentary, I would rather have you believe
that the persons publishing this work were actuated by the
motives which their defence sets forth. But the question;
will still remain, whether they are justified in publishing and
circulating in the w^holesale and unrestricted way which I
have pointed out to you, that which — if in the result you
should be of that opinion — is an obscene work. Gentlemen,,
that question arose some few years ago, it is in fact very
much in the course of discussion at the present moment, as
I had occasion to observe in speaking of the case from which
I am about to quote. A discussion took place some time
ago on the subject of the confessional in the Romish Church,
and it was a subject of the deepest interest both to those
who took the Protestant view- that the confessional was
wrong, and to the Roman Catholic party, who were of opinion
that it was a sacrament, and essential to the discipline
of their church. This discussion, no one can deny, was fraught
with most important consequences on each side, and on the
one hand the directions which were given to confessors by
doctors of the Roman Church were veiled in the compara-
tive obscurity of a learned language. Those who took the
other view though^ themselves justified, and it was held by

courts before whom the question came that it ought to be
assumed in their favour in the discussion of the question that
they reaUy did beheve that, for the purpose of getting rid of
the evil effects of the confessional, they were entitled to pub-
lish to everybody the sort of questions which it was urged
confessors were authorized to put to those who were con-
fessing in the confessional. It was argued on the one side :
this is a most important public question ; this is a matter
which affects the relations between the great Christian
churches into which Christianity is divided, and, therefore,
this is a matter of the greatest public concern, and should
have the most absolute and unreserved pubhcity in discuss-
ing all that is relevant to the question. Gentlemen, that
question came before this court, and I can do no better, I
think, than read to you what was said upon that subject,
because it seems to me to go to the very pith of the matter
v/hich we are at present discussing. Now here I might call
to your mind the motive which is said to influence the per-
sons who are publishing this book — viz., the motive of the
general welfare of mankind, avoiding the evils due to the
increase of the population, and the misery which it is said is
inflicted on persons of small means who marry and are
unable to sustain large families. There the object was to
destroy what was considered to be a false system of theology,
and now remembering that, I think I cannot do better than
to read to you on that subject the judgment which my lord,
who now so happily presides here, concurred in, as it was
by the whole court present. The Solicitor-General then,
read as follows : —

" We have considered this matter, and we are of opinion
that the judgment of the learned Recorder must be re-
versed, and the decision of the magistrates affirmed.'' This
was a proceeding under 20 and 21 Vict, c. 83, s. i, whereby
it is provided that in respect of obscene books, &c., kept to
be sold or distributed, magistrates may order the seizure
and condemnation of such works in casethey are of opinion
that the pubhcation of then> would have been, the subject-
matter of an indictment at law, and that such prosecution
ought to have been instituted. Now, it is found here, as a.
fact, that the work which is the subject-matter of the
present proceeding was, to a considerable extent, an obscene
publication, and, by reason of the obscene matter in it, cal-
culated to produce a pernicious eflect in depraving and
debauching the minds of the persons into whose bands it

might come. The magistrates must have been of opinion
that the work was indictable, and that the pubhcation of it
was a fit and proper subject for indictment. We must take
the latter finding of the magistrates to have been adopted
by the learned Recorder when he reversed their decision,
because it is not upon that ground that he reversed it : he
leaves that ground untouched; but he reversed the magi-
strates' decision upon the ground that, although this work
was an obscene publication, and although its tendency upon
the public mind was that suggested upon the part of the
information, yet that the immediate intention of the appel-
lant was not so to affect the public mind, but to expose the
practices and errors of the confessional system in the Roman
Catholic Church. Now, we must take it upon the finding
of the Recorder that such was the motive of the appellant
in distributing this publication — that his intention was
honestly and bona fide to expose the errors and practices of
the Roman Catholic Church in the matter of confession ;
and upon that ground of motive the Recorder thought an
indictment could not have been sustained, inasmuch as to
the maintenance of the indictment it would have been
necessary that the intention should be alleged and proved —
viz., that of corrupting the public mind by the obscene
matter in question. In that respect I differ from the
Recorder. I think that if there be an infraction of the law,
the intention to break the law must be inferred, and the
criminal character of the publication is not affected or
qualified by there being any ulterior object in view (which
is the immediate and primary object of the parties) of a
different and of an honest character. It is quite clear
that the publishing of an obscene book is an offence
against the law of the land. It is perfectly true, as has been
pointed out by Mr. Kydd, that there are a great many pub-
lications of high repute in the literary productions of this
country, the tendency of which is immodest, and, if you
please, immoral, and, possibly, there might have been sub-
ject-matter for indictment in many of the works which have
been referred to. But it is not to be said, because there
.are in many standard and established works objectionable
passages, that therefore the law is not as alleged on the
part of this prosecution — viz., that obscene works are the
subject-matter of indictment, and I think the test of ob-
scenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged
as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds

are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands
a publication of this sort may fall. Now, with regard to
this work, it is quite certain that it would suggest to the
minds of the young of either sex, or even to persons of ad-
vanced years, thoughts of a most impure and libidinous
character. The very reason why this work is put forward to
expose the practices of the Roman Catholic confessional, is
the tendency of questions, involving practices and pro-
pensities of a certain description, to do mischief to the
minds of those to whom such questions are addressed^
by suggesting thoughts and desires which otherwise
could not have occurred to their minds. If that be the
case as between the priest and the person confessing, it
manifestly must equally be so when the whole is put into the
shape of a series of paragraphs, one following upon another^
each involving some impure practice, some of them of the
most filthy and disgusting and unnatural description it is
possible to imagine. I take it, therefore, that apart from
the ulterior object which the publication of this work had in
view, the work itself, in every sense of the term, is an obscene
publication, and that, consequently as the law of England
does not allow of any obscene publication, such publication
is indictable. We have it, therefore, that the publication
itself is a breach of the law. But then it is said for the
appellant, ' Yes, but his purpose was not to deprave the
public mind ; his purpose was to expose the errors of the
Roman Catholic religion, especially in the matter of the
confessional.' Be it so. The question then presents itself
in this simple form : May you commit an offence against
the law in order that thereby you may effect some ulterior
object which you have in view, which may be an honest and
even a laudable one ? My answer is emphatically, ' No.' The
law says you shall not publish an obscene work. An obscene
work is here published, and a work the obscenity of which is
so clear and decided that it is impossible to suppose that the
man who published it must not have known and seen that
the effect upon the minds of many of those into whose
hands it would come would be of a mischievous and demo-
rahsing character. Is he justified in doing that which clearly
would be wrong, legally as well as morally, because he
thinks that some greater good may be accomplished ? In
order to prevent the spread and progress of CathoUcism in
this country, or possibly to extirpate it in another, and to
prevent the State from affording any countenance to the

Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, is he justified in doing
that which has necessarily the immediate tendency of demo-
ralising the public mind wherever this publication is circu-
lated ? It seems to me that to adopt the affirmative of that
proposition would be to uphold something which, in my
sense of what is right and wrong, would be very repre-
hensible. It appears to me the only good that is to
be accomplished is of the most uncertain character."
Gentlemen, I pause here to say that I most deeply regret
that every word which I am now reading, applying to the
" Confessional Unmasked,'' is applicable to this work. I
have it on the face of the last edition, which bears on its
title-page these words, ^'This is the one hundredth thou-
sand.'' The Lord Chief Justice, in his judgment, continues:
This work, I am told, is sold at the corners of streets and
in all directions ; and, of course, it falls into the hands of
persons of all classes, young and old, and the minds of the
hitherto pure are exposed to the dangers of contamination
and pollution from the impurity it contains. And for
what ? To prevent them, it is said, from becoming Roman
Catholics, when the probability is that nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of the thousand into whose hands this
work would fall would never be exposed to the chance
of being converted to the Roman Catholic religion.
It seems to me that the effect of this work is mischievous
and against the law, and is not to be justified because the
immediate object of the publication is not to deprave the
public mind, but it may be to extirpate Roman Catholicism.
I think that the old sound and honest maxim, that you shall
not do evil that good may come, is applicable in law as well
as in morals, and here we have a certain and positive evil
produced for the purpose of effecting an uncertain and remote
and very doubtful good. I think, therefore, the case for the
order is made out, and although I quite concur in thinking
that the motive of the parties who published this work, how-
ever mistaken, was an honest one, yet I cannot suppose
but what they had that intention which constitutes the
criminality of the act, at any rate, that they knew perfectly
vrell that this work must have the tendency which, in point
of law, makes it an obscene publication, namely, the tendency
to corrupt the minds and morals of those into whose hands
it might come. The mischief of it, I think, cannot be exag-
gerated. But it is not upon that I take my stand in the
judgment I pronounce. I am of opinion, as the learned

Recorder has found, that this is an obscene publication. I
hold that where a man pubUshes a work manifestly obscene,
he must be taken to have had the intention which is im-
plied from that act, and that as soon as you have an illegal
act thus established, quoad the intention and quoad the act,
it does not lie in the mouth of the man who does it to say :
^ Well, I was breaking the, law, but I was breaking it for
some wholesome and salutary purpose/ The law does not
allow that ; you must abide by the law, and if you would
accomplish your object, you must do it in a legal manner or
let it alone ; you must not do it in a manner which is
illegal. I think, therefore, that the Recorder's judgment
must be reversed, and the order must stand."

The Lord Chief Justice : In that case it was alleged
that the questions put in the " Confessional " were calcu-
lated to suggest unchaste and unclean thoughts, and, there-
fore, it appeared to me, they were calculated to lead to
immorality, and that a man could not say, " I published a
work of an immoral tendency, but to effect what I thought
would be a greater good." We all held that that was no
answer.

The Solicitor-General : No doubt, my lord, your lord-
rJiip will remember that the whole of the questions used
m the " Confessional " were published side by side with the
strongest protest against such questions being permitted to
be put. The mere fact of pubhshing the work the full Court
held to be illegal. The other judges concurred in your
lordship's judgment, giving their special reasons.

The Lord Chief Justice : I think the questions were
pretty nearly the same as those recently referred to in the
House of Lords.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I have no desire to unnecessarily
interrupt the learned Solicitor-General ; but I would submit,
my lord, that he has no right to present to the jury some-
thing which he must not prove until after the verdict, and
which does not relate to the matter at issue ; and therefore
I think it is hardly fair for him to introduce into his speech, for
the purpose of influencing a verdict, the alleged fact he has
lecently referred to with regard to the publication of the work.

The Lord Chief Justice : Perhaps it would be better
to confine the case to the issue there is to be tried.

The Solicitor-General : A part of my case is that the
publication of this work recently must affect the act ot
publication, and is important for the jury to kno\v.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The indictment is for a publication on
March 24th and March 29th.

The Lord Chief Justice : I decide that point for you,
Mr. Bradlaugh.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well ; I thank your lordship.

The Solicitor-General : I must not be taken to consent
to its not being important now, and shall have to refer to it
again.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I will take my objection at the proper
time.

The Solicitor-General : In questions of this kind it
should be borne in mind by the jury, not only the nature of
the work published, but the mode of pubHcation, and I
cannot do better than to read to you, gentlemen, his lord-
ship's own language in the case I have already referred to — The
Queen v, Hicklin. His lordship, at page 367 of " Common
Law Reports, Q. B.," says : "A medical treatise, with illus-
trations necessary for the information of those for whose
education or information the work is intended, may in a
certain sense be obscene, and yet not the subject for indict-
ment, but it can never be that these prints may be
exposed for any one, boys and girls, to see as they pass. The im-
morality must depend upon the circumstances of the pubhca-
tion." Therefore, gentlemen, as it appears to me, it is a matter
worthy of your consideration, not only the nature of the
work itself, but the mode in which it was and is now
claimed to be published. It is not whether a work of this
kind can be submitted to a college of philosophy, but
whether it can be sold at the price of sixpence about the
streets of London and elsewhere, and it is with a view to
stopping that publication that the law has interfered.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is assuming always
that it is an obscene work. I did not intend it to apply to
a work on a scientific question.

The Solicitor-General: No; it may be absolutely
necessary for the medical profession that plates and works
treating on obstetric matters should be published ; but who
v/ould say it would be right to publish such things indis-
criminately throughout England ? And it is to that ques-
tion that I venture to think the distinction of my mxd
seems to point. The morality or immorality in such a case
must depend upon the circumstances of the publication.
We have here, in the work before us, a chapter on restric-
tion published, not written in any learned language, but in

plain English, in a facile form, and sold in the public
streets at sixpence. Of course, as my lord has pointed out,
although the question is one of publication, the mode of
publication is involved. You must first estabhsh that the
work is an obscene work. Now, gentlemen, I do not wish
to read you extracts from the work. I would rather refer
you to the passages in the copies of the work you have
before you, which we, the prosecution, rely upon as being
obscene.

The Lord Chief Justice : Meaning by obscene, tend-
ing to influence the passions, or recommending some course
of conduct inconsistent with public morals.

The Solicitor-General : I do not want, gentlemen, to
trouble you in going through many passages of this work ;
but at page 34 you will find a chapter on promoting and
checking conception.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am not sure, my lord, whether your
lordship had a copy of the same edition as that which the
Solicitor-General and the jury have j but I will hand your
lordship one.

Having handed one to the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord
Chief Justice said : I found a difference in the paging.
This, Mr. Bradlaugh, is the same edition as that which
the Solicitor-General is about to refer to ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Yes, my lord ; and the same as the
one on which the indictment is founded ; there is a little
left out of the one which is contained in the other edition.

The Lord Chief Justice : And the same as the jury
have is this ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Yes, my lord, and the same as that
which is the subject of the indictment. The one your lord-
ship had was the later edition, handed up on the motion for
the certioi'ai'i.

The Solicitor-General : The whole chapter, gentlemen,
is, as you will perceive, devoted to the subject of promoting
and checking conception, referring, amongst other matters
to the use of cayenne ; and, gentlemen, I do not desire to
read it. I would rather refer you to the chapter, and ycu
will perceive for yourself what it purports to be.

The Lord Chief Justice : Are you not going to read it ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not wish to compel the Solicitor-
General to read the pamphlet, but I require to know the
exact parts relied on to support the indictment. I have
appHed to the prosecution for a statement of the parts relied

on, and have been refused. I am afraid for our defence I
shall have to require the prosecution to read the work to the
jury, unless we are allowed to know the exact words relied
upon by the learned gentleman.

The Lord Chief Justice : Yes, I think that is fair.

The Solicitor-General : I thought it would be unfair
to the defendants in one sense to select any part of the
book. I presume Mr. Bradlaugh's motion which he
was about to make was on the ground that there w^re no
passages mentioned in the indictment, but merely that the
work was an obscene book. It seemed to me that it would
be unfair to the defendants and to the prosecution to select
any one part of the book. I thought we n-eeded only to
give the jury that which it seemed to me was the key to the
whole publication. If not, the whole book must be read.

The Lord Chief Justice : I quite agree ; but still I was
supposing that if there was anything independent of the
whole scope of the work that you could put your finger on
and say it tended to obscenity, it is right that the defendants
should know it. In one part he discusses the causes,
of sterility in females, and how it may be cured by means,
of certain remedies such as he suggests. One, for instance,
you say, is by the use of cayenne. That, it may be argued, is
medical information ; but, on the other hand, it may be said to-
be an indecent and indictable passage. It is well known that
sterility is a source of great discomfort to v/omen who wish
to be blessed with children, and any man who can suggest a
mode for its removal would be a benefactor to humanity ;
but, as you say, that may be used as a disguise to instil bad
notions into the mind. That is a question for the jury to decide^,
and for that purpose they must have the subject before them.

The Solicitor-General : I shall have to read the whole
of that chapter ; but I did not wish to give the jury the
pain and trouble to hear it.

The Lord Chief Justice : Very well, read it. The
book must be read, sooner or later, either by you, Mr.
Solicitor, or the officer of the court.

The Solicitor-General : I thought it was unfair to read
a part.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Whatever part of the work the learned
Solicitor thinks it his duty to refer to, I have a large number
of standard medical works, of the highest character, which I
shall have to read extracts from, showing that every lino
of Knowlton is amply covered by the best authorities. I

mention that, as I should like the Solicitor-General to know
how I put it.

The Lord Chief Justice : What I shall ask the jury will
be very much like this : If they take the statements con-
tained in the work to be a treatise on obstetric medicine, do
they consider there is anything in it which the writer was n®t
justified in writing? And, looking to the whole character of
the work, do they think it is introduced into the work merely
for the purposes of medical knowledge useful for the people
to know, or do they think it tends to immoral results?
Whether you read it, or whether it is read by the officer of
the court, or the defendants, matters little ; the jury must
hear it.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I only want the passages the Solicitor-
General rehes on precisely stated, so that I may identify the
parts I have to answer. I do not want to put the Solicitor-
General, or the officer of the court, to the inconvenience of
reading it. Nor do I desire thus to waste thet ime of the court.

The Solicitor-General to the jury : I will point out
one of the passages which, I think, evidently not only shows
the object of the writer but illustrates the mischief and evil
that the work is liable to produce. It is really extremely
painful to me, (hesitating) very painful, to have to read this.
At page 38 you will find — [Here the Solicitor-General read
to the end of the chapter]. Gentlemen, I have read the
whole of that, and I assure you that it has been with
extreme pain and regret that I have found myself compelled
to read it, and if it were possible — I don't know that it is,
but if it were — to do what the defendant said in his inter-
locutory statements, /. to produce from any number of
medical works observations supporting this book in . its
entirety, I should submit that a medical work, published as
this is, would be properly the subject of an indictment. It
must not be assumed that, peradventure, a great number of
works having been published that have not been made the
subject of indictment, that another should not be pro-
ceeded against. No one feels more deeply than I do that
these prosecutions are fraught with danger, and that
any number of authorities may be brought before you
to suggest that these works are not novel. Any autho-
rities of that sort I should recommend you to disregard.
You may tell me about American doctors ; but it is
not to be permitted that doctors in England shall have
a right to circulate such filth, and then be allowed to

L 2

substantiate it by instances from other medical works.
Many things — medical treatises, recommendations for the
use of medicaments, herbs, and so forth — applicable to the
ills under which humanity may suffer may, in the study of
the physician, be properly considered for the purpose of
applying to mankind some kind of remedy for the evils
under which they may suffer. But is it to be said that
because these things may be discussed and considered in the
closet of the physician, that they maybe cast broadcast all over
the streets ? If you accept that, you entirely subvert the princi-
ple which is properly deducible, and there is no such thing as
indecency and obscenity at all. A man who had the view
that the human figure was the most beautiful in the world
might claim the right to walk naked through the streets, and
might triumphantly say, I am exhibiting nothing but the
natural parts, and it is only a prurient mind that will see
anything improper in it." And you might push it to the
extreme of saying that, inasmuch as sexual intercourse
is a natural provision, there is nothing improper in
publicly performing it. — [We paraphrase the extreme coarse-
ness of the language here used by the learned counsel].
There is no limit to the extent to which a proposition like
that may be carried. The question is for the good sense of an
English jury, whether what I have read to you — and I don't
wish to read any more — may be properly sold. I rely upon that
passage read as indicating what is the nature, the extent, and the
scope of that particular passage led up to, as I have told you
it is, by a description of the parts engaged. It may be said that
parts of this book — the defendant will be entitled to point
to them, and I wish to make no concealment of such pas-
sages— contain passages in v/hich the general scope and
thesis enforced relates to marriage, v/hich is introduced where
the connection between the sexes is spoken of Therefore,
you may read it thus : I recommend this not as a mode
by which persons who are unmarried may gratify their pas-
sions without the consequences which follow from that grati-
fication. You may read it in every line that the defendant
recommends and points out this simply as the use that is
to be made of the preventive check, assuming that lawful
connection between the sexes, and assuming that marriage
has sanctified the intercourse of which he is speaking. Gentle-
men, the question for you is, whether a book of this sort,
published to everybody, would not suggest to the unmarried
as well as to the married, and any persons into whose hands

this book miglit get — the boy of 1 7 and the girl of the same
age — that they might gratify their passions without the mis-
chief and the inconvenience and the destruction of cha-
racter which would be involved if they gratified them and con-
ception followed. Gentlemen, tkat is one of the questions
which you will have to determine. I venture to submit that
the whole scope and tendency of giving such a minute de-
scription of all that has relation to the sexual appetite and
the apparatus concerned therein — the effect of that is to
constitute an obscene book. Gentlemen, there is one passage
at the very end of the book, pp. 44and45, which I will also read.
[The Solicitor-General here read p. 44 and to the end of p.
45.] Now, gentlemen, I pause for one moment upon that.
These expressions, which you find all scattered through the
book, assuming that they are meant for married per-
sons to put a check upon undue population, I submit to
you that is colourable, and that the object of the whole
book, the scope of this book, is to permit people, indepen-
dent of marriage, to gratify their passions, independently of
the checks which nature and providence has interposed. I
say that the object of this book is to tell everybody how
they may do that, and yet have no children, whether they
are married or not. Now, I invite your attention to the
last passage. You will observe the thesis is the necessity,
in point of health and in point of morals and mental tran-
quillity, for the gratification of this particular passion, and
observe — " It is a fact universally admitted, that unmarried
females do not enjoy so much good health, and attain to so
great an age, as the married." What is the inference from that?
Here are the means by which the unmarried female may gratify
her passions. The truth is, those who publish this book must
have known perfectly well that an unlimited publication of
this sort, put into the hands of everybody, whatever their
age, whatever their condition in life, whatever their modes
of life, whatever their means, put into the hands of any per-
son who may think proper to pay sixpence for it — the thesis
is this : if you do not desire to have children, and wish to
gratify your sensual passions, and not undergo the responsi
bility of marriage ; if you are desirous of doing that, I show
you by a philosophical treatise, fdrsooth, how you may effect
that object satisfactorily and safely, after a long experience,
collected from a great number of scientific persons ; the
expedient I recommend has never been known to fail. And,
therefore, this is to be put into the hands of every

one, and it is sought to be justified upon the ground that
it is only a recommendation to married people, who under
the cares of their married life are unable to bear the burden
of too many children. I should be prepared to argue
before you that if confined to that object alone it would be
most mischievous. The Christian religion is happily still a
part of the law of this country, and if it w^ere confined simply
to that recommendation, I certainly should have a great
deal to say to you, and would point out that that is immoral
in the higher sense to which my lord at the commencement
of the case referred. I feel it would be inappropriate to
enter upon a discussion of this character, because it would
appear to concede that this book is only intended for
circulation among persons so situated. I deny this, and I deny
that it is the purport and intention of this book. This
book is sold for sixpence, and at such a price as that it will
induce a circulation, which you may well conjecture, and
it may be induced amongst an enormous population, there
wdll be so many sold to boys and girls and persons who
may obtain it with perfect facility in the streets ; I decline
to argue the question, and it would be most inappropriate
and inadequate to discuss the book as if it w^ere a document
handed to a young couple w^ho are anxious to avoid the
evil and misery, wdiich, as the writer states, a large family
produces. That is not the ground on which I should dis-
cuss it. I submit to you, that from what I have read, it is
an obscene book. The mode of publication is such as does
not justify the book, and it is calculated to deprave and
destroy the minds of those young persons especially into
w^Tose hands it may come, and therefore, it is properly the
subject of an indictment. Don't talk to me about doctors ! I
care not if every physician in England had v/ritten a book of
this character — although God forbid that I should suggest any
physician could do so ! — if you collect into this book all that
maybe found relating to one subject-matter scattered in various
books, it is a totally different thing. Apart from such a question
altogether, if you v/ere to prove to me that any physician in
England had published a book like this, I submit that there
can be no justification for that book to be quoted, w^hich
is calculated to deprave the minds of those into whose
hands it may fall. I therefore ask your judgment that this
book is an obscene publication.

William Simonds, detective officer, City of London
police, examined by Mr. Douglas Straight :

Did you, on the 24th of March, go to 28, Stonecutter
Street ? — Yes, I did.

Is that the Freethought Pubhshing Office? — Yes, sir.
Did you go into the shop? — I did.

Whom did you see there? — I saw Mr. Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Besant.

What did you say? — I asked for a copy of the Fruits of
Philosophy."

By the Lord Chief Justice : Whom did you see ?

Mr. Straight : He says he saw the two defendants. You
^jurchased a copy ?

Witness : Yes, I bought a copy of the " Fruits of Philo-
sophy."

To whom did you address yourself? — To Mrs. Besant.

What took place? — She supplied me with a copy, for
which I paid sixpence. I gave her a shilling, and she gave
me sixpence change.

Did the defendant Mr. Bradlaugh hear what you said ? —
He was close beside, and could hear what was said.

Did you go again on the 2 9Lh of March ? — Yes.

Did you purchase another copy on that occasion ?

By Mr. Bradlaugh : One moment, pray. Were either of
the defendants there then ? — No, they were not.

Neither of them v/ere there. Who served you ? — A
y^oung man in the shop.

By Mrs. Besant : How long have you been in the detec-
tive force? — About 13 years a detective.

What wages do you get ? — Thirty-one shillings and six-
pence.

Has it been raised at all ? — Yes ; I get an extra portion
for my clothes.

You did not get so much at the beginning ? — No ; about
28s. or 29s.

By Mr. Bradlaugh : Have you the documents you pro-
duced before the magistrate? — I have, sir.

Will you just let me look at them ? — I will, sir.

The documents were produced, and proved to be memo-
randa from Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant to Detective-
Sergeant Green, of the City Police, and to Mr. Martin, the
Chief Clerk of the Guildhall Justice-room, intimating that
Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant would attend to personally
dispose of the first hundred copies of the Knowlton
pamphlet.

Mr, Bradlaugh : Have you received a letter from me

since the commencement of this prosecution ? — Yes, about
three weeks ago.

Have you got it ? — No, sir.

Mr. Bradlaugh (to City SoUcitor) : Do you produce this
letter. I gave you notice to produce it.

Witness : All the letters I received I handed over to the
City Solicitor.

Mr. Bradlaugh : It is simply a letter asking him if he is
the prosecutor. I ask did you give an answer to that
question? Did you reply whether or not you were the
prosecutor? Did you say yes or no ?

Witness : No, I did not.

Edwin AVilliams, constable of the City Police, called.
Mr. Mead : On the 24th of March did you go to Stone-
cutter Street ?

Witness : Yes, sir.

Whom did you see ? — I saw Mrs. Besant and Mr. Brad-
laugh. I asked Mrs. Besant to give me the book called the
" Fruits of Philosophy.''

Did she give you the book ? — She gave me the book, and
I paid sixpence for it.

Did the other defendant hear what was said ? — Yes ; he
was standing close by, sir.

That is the only time, I think, you went ? — That was the
only time.

Have you the book ? — Yes.

Hand it in, please.

(Book handed in.)

No questions were put to this witness by either Mr. Brad-
laugh or Mrs. Besant.

Detective Sergeant Robert Outram, City of London
Police, called.

Mr. Mead : On April 5th, did you obtain a warrant at
the Guildhall Justice-room ? — No ; I received the warrant at
the head office.

Did you go with the warrant to 28, Stonecutter Street? —
I did.

With the two last witnesses ? — Yes.

Did you see the two defendants ? — I did.

Did you search the premises ? — When I saw them I
told them I was a detective-sergeant, and that I held a
warrant-

Mr. Bradlaugh : Don't tell us anything about the war-
rant if you have not got it here.

The Lord Chief Justice : When you said warrant, you
must have described it in some way. — I said I had a warrant
for their arrest, also a search warrant. I read the warrant to
Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, and I also searched the
premises.

Did you find any books ? — I did not.

Lord Chief Justice : You did not find any boolcs there ?
— No, my lord.

Mr. Mead : Did the defendant say anything ? — When
I read the warrant to him he said there was no t a
book on the premises which would come under the
warrant.

Mr. Bradlaugh. made that reply. What else did he say?
— He said he had a few copies, which they would require
for the defence.

The Lord Chief Justice : Require for what ?

Sergeant Outram : For their defence, my lord.

You then took both defendants into custody ? — Yes. I
afterwards took them to Bridewell police-station.

Solicitor-General : Now, my lord, I propose to prove
what I referred to in opening, what the publication is since,
and the extent of the publication.

Lord Chief Justice : That the defendants have pub-
lished you have proved.

Solicitor-General : This book bearing their imprint
must surely make them publishers of other copies.

Lord Chief Justice : Somebcdy else may have bought
up all the other copies ; if you can show that the sale took
place in their premises — but you don't say so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I should submit that even this would
be no evidence on an indictment charging us v/ith spacinc
sales on the 24th and 29th.

The Lord Chief Justice (to Solicitor-General) : I don't see
what you w^ant. You have proved the sale of two copies
of this work by the defendants jointly. The only question
for the jury is, what is the objector effect of the work. If the
defendants should be convicted, you can produce the other
evidence hereafter, by way of aggravation, that many other"
copies have been sold by the defendants. One sale is
enough, and you have proved it.

The Solicitor-General : It strikes me as important that
it was being published everywhere.

The Lord Chief Justice : Does not the preface sohw^
that it was intended for general circulation ?

The Solicitor-General : Simonds, I believe, has not
identified the copy in court.
Simon ds recalled.

The Solicitor-General to Witness : Just look at the
copy attached to the deposition ; is that the copy you pur-
chased on the 24th ?

Witness : It is the copy purchased on the 29th.

TheSoLiciTOR-GENP:RAL : Then you have a copy purchased
on the 24th; you should have handed both in. (To the Lord
Chief Justice.) That is my case, my lord, but after wha tyour
lordship has said it would be right to call attention to
certain passages in the book, and to ask the officer of the
Court to read them.

Mr. Bradlaugh : To save both the officer's time, and
that of everyone else, it will be sufficient if the passages are
pointed out distinctly with the page, and identified as begin-
ning with such a word and ending with such a word ; we do not
w^ish to put the officer of the court to the necessity of reading
them ; it will only be uselessly taking up time. I will only
ask the learned counsel to be particular in the references he
gives.

The Solicitor-General : I should like the jury, if your
lordship will be good enough, to look at page 8 (in any
instance down to the end of the chapter), then page 11.

Mr. Bradlaugh : But where do you finish?

The Solicitor-General : At the end ot the chapter.

Mr. Bradlaugh : That will be page 9.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then page 11?

The Solicitor-General : What I said was page 8 to the
€nd of the chapter. Then page 1 1 from " fully to effect,''
pages, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

The Lord Chief Justice : The whole portion of the
•description ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then where will that end ?

The Solicitor-General : ^' Induced by too frequent
and promiscuous intercourse."

The Lord Chief Justice: All the way through to page 18?

The Solicitor-General: Yes. Then page 27 ^'con-
sidering it important to do away with," down to the end of
the chapter, page 33.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The whole .of the intervening pages ?

The Solicitor-General : Yes. I do not think I can
draw any distinction in chapter 3, on checking conception.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The whole of chapter 3 ?

The Solicitor-General : Then page 44, begmning "every
young married woman/' down to the end of the chapter. That
is my case, my lord.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I will just call over the pages to see if
vre liave got them rightly.

The Lord Chief Justice: I think you may assume thatthe
learned Solicitor-General objects to the whole book from be-
ginning to end.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well, my lord, then we must de-
fend the whole. If your lordship will allow it, I have
arranged, for our mutual convenience, that Mrs. Besant
should make her defence first. I do not know whether your
lordship would adjourn now (12.30), before the case for the
defence is commenced ; it will be utterly impossible for
Mrs. Besant to conclude before the adjournment for
luncheon.

The Lord Chief Justice : We have an hour yet.
Mr. Bradlaugh : I only suggested it for the convenience
of the Court.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, and gentlemen of the jury — It
will not seem strange to any of you if, in defending myself
here to-day, I find myself slightly over-weighted by the
amount of legal ability which the prosecution has thought
it well to bring against me. I know that names such as
those who stand as advocates against me must carry — and
must rightly carry — a certain amount of weight with those
to whom I have to appeal. When you find the learned
Solicitor-General engaged in the case, and when his great
legal knowledge is not enough to conduct it with-
out the assistance of two other counsel learned
in the law, you must come to the conclusion
that you have two great criminals before you, be-
cause, if it v;ere not so, the prosecution would not go
into the very large expense entailed in this case. I might
feel less hopeful of success did I pretend to rival the
learned Solicitor-General in legal knowledge, in force of
tongue, or in skill of dialectic. But, gentlemen, I do not rely
on these : I rely on a far mightier power ; I trust to the
goodness of my cause, and I am sure that, when you have
heard the evidence which I shall lay before you, you will
feel that to give a verdict of guilty would be to give a
verdict against the weight of the evidence, and would have
a most unfortunate effect upon the public outside. But,
gentlemen, I do not mean that I have had the impertinence

to come before you without a careful and thorough con-
sideration of the case which I submit. I have spent the
few weeks I have had between my arrest and the present
time in studying the case I have to set before you. I have
done my best during these few weeks which have intervened
to make myself acquainted with those trials of the past
which bear upon this subject, and those state trials from
which I could gather some ideas by which I might move
you, or some words which I could use when appealing to
you. It is not as defendant that I plead to you to-day —
not simply as defending myself do I stand here — but I
speak as counsel for hundreds of the poor, and it is they
for whom I defend this case. My clients are scattered
up and down through the length and breadth of the land ; I
find them amongst the poor, amongst whom I have been so
much; I find my clients amongst the fathers, who see theirwage
ever reducing, and prices ever rising; I find my clients
amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent child-
bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young
to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them.
It is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the cloth-
ing, the training of a large family of young children to look
to; but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who
should be at home with her little ones, has to go out and
work in the fields for wage to feed them when her presence
is needed in the house. I find my clients among the little
children. Gentlemen, do you know the fate of so many of
these children ? — the little ones half starved because there
is food enough for two but not enough for twelve ; half
clothed because the mother, no matter what her skill and
care, cannot clothe them with the money brought home by
the breadwinner of the family ; brought up in ignorance,
and ignorance means pauperism and crime — gentlemen, your
happier circumstances have raised you above this suffering,
but on you also this question presses ; for these over large
families mean also increased poor-rates, which are growing
heavier year by year. These poor are my clients, and if I
v/eary you by length of speech, as I fear I may, I do so be-
cause I must think of them more even than I think of your
time or trouble. You must remember that those for whom
I speak are watching throughout England, Scotland, and
Ireland, for the verdict you will give. Do you wonder I
call them my cHents, these poor for whom I plead ? they
cannot bring the fee of gold such as is received by the

learned gentlemen who are briefed against me here; but they
bring what is better than gold — they send up a few
pence week by week out of their scanty wage for as
long as the trial lasts; they send up kindly thoughts
and words of cheer and of encouragement ; mothers who
beg me to persist in the course on which I have entered —
and at any hazard to myself, at any cost and any risk — they
plead to me to save their daughters from the misery they
have themselves passed through during the course of their
married lives. Gentlemen, I may perhaps say one word for
myself before I go right into my case. The learned
Solicitor-General has had the kindness to say that he does
not impute bad intent to us in publishing this Avork. What
bad intent could there be ? I had nothing to gain in pub-
lishing this work — I had much to lose. It is no light thing
for a woman, whose ambition is bound up in the name
which she hopes to make, to have the imputation thrown
upon her of pubhshing indecent books and of disseminating
obscenity amongst the young. I risk my name, I risk my
liberty ; and it is not without deep and earnest thought that
I have entered into this struggle. And when I shall lay before
you the indictment against me, I must ask you if you will be
able to bring in a verdict of guilty on an indictment such
as this. The cases of myself and my co-defendant are prac-
tically the same ; and while we do sever in our defence, and
each conduct our own, we have thought it wise that we
shall not severally go over the whole of the case.
I have thought that I shall best consult the
convenience of the Court by leaving the purely physio-
logical details to be dealt with by my co-defendant. Although
I do not pretend to the extreme delicacy displayed by the
learned Solicitor-General ; while I should hardly have
imagined it possible that a counsel who has had such wide
and laige experience in criminal cases should have hesitated
to read extracts which deal with facts perfectly well known
to any doctor ; at the same time, I think it will be more
fitting, more in good taste, more agreeable to the Court, if I
leave these purely physiological details to my co-defendant.
I do this, not as admitting that these details are obscene or
indecent in any respect, but simply because I think that
such a course will be pleasanter to all concerned. I propose
to deal chiefly with the other parts of the pamphlet. The
oAiestions are : What is this pamphlet ? What is it intended
to do ? What purpose is there in the circulation of it ?

One or two physiological questions I shall touch upon and
deal with generally, because I feel myself compelled to do
so in the interest of my clients, in the interest of the poor
w^oman who has only 6d. to spare, and should be allowed to
purchase with that 6d. the knowledge which richer women
can obtain for 2S. 6d., 5s., or 6s., at any of the railway
bookstalls of Messrs. Smith and Sons. The learned Solicitor-
General spoke most disdainfully of a book that should be
sold for 6d. ; but when people have to live on 13s.
a week, 6d. is quite as much as they can afford
to pay for a book containing useful and necessary sanitary
information. Gentlemen, I do not think there is anything
to fear in this presence, from statements outside, calculated
to arouse prejudice against us. I do not think I need do
more than refer to prejudice which has been sought to be
aroused against us by certain newspapers — one in particular,
which I will not here mention, whose editor, when attacked,
has a habit of hiding himself behind an infant. That
paper charged me with child murder, and referred to me as
an advocate of promiscuous intercourse. Gentlemen, if
some word as to promiscuous intercourse had not fallen
from the lips of the learned Solicitor-General, I should have
thought that such a charge was too foul and too baseless to
have been founded on a pamphlet such as this. You will have
seen some of these papers, but I am sure that you have left
them outside the Court, and that you will not allow them to
influence your verdict here, and that any word which may
have fallen in another case Avill not be allowed by you to
prejudice this. One great fault charged against us, though
shut out by the ruling of the learned judge, is, that books
which are not ours, and do not emanate from us, are sold by
men who get drunk, and swear in the public streets. I
am not here to defend these hawkers. I can only say
that that to which objection has been made is the
fault of the Solicitor-General himself, or of the prose-
cution which he represents. This pamphlet had a small
sale for years back of about 700 copies annually, and for the
number that have been sold since our arrest, you must blame
the prosecution, and not me. It is the prosecution which has
given the importance to this book. If we had w^anted to
do so we could have hired men to sell the w^ork at the
street corners, but we did not care to have our book in the
hands of men bearing the — not good — character of too many
of this class of persons. We sent these men away from

the shop when they came to buy, and v/e absolutely refused
to supply them, and we have done nothing to spread the sale
of this pamphlet, as we have done with our other publica-
tions. We have not even advertised it in our own paper,
except once, and then only because we wanted to make it
known that we were going to sell it for the first time at our
office. Spurious copies were printed and sold at the street
corners, because it was difficult to get the real pamphlet,,
and the v/hole annoyance is due to the action of the
prosecution ; they have given a purely factitious
importance to an old and almost forgotten pamphlet
which had been supplanted by more modern treatises ;,
and the more they prosecute the more they will
cause this annoyance to continue, because these men
sell whatever they can get a high price for, and people
buy it now simply because it is prosecuted. I come now,
gentlemen, to the question of the indictment ; I do not know
if it has been laid before you or no. This indictment
charges Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant that un-
lawfully and wickedly devising and contriving and intend-
ing, as much as in them lay, to vitiate and corrupt the morals-
as well of youth as of divers other liege subjects of our said
lady the Queen, and to incite and encourage the said liege
subjects to indecent, obscene, unnatural, and immoral
practices, and bring them to a state of wickedness, lewdness
and debauchery," they did publish a certain book, which it then
goes on to describe in words which I will not read because of
their extreme and unnecessary coarseness. Gentlemen, I
think I may fairly lay some complaint before you against
the language of this indictment. I may be told that it is
pleaders' language, and I have, fortunately, not very much
knowledge of pleaders' language, but I must really put it to*
you that the learned Solicitor-General does not accuse me
of what is charged against me in this indictment. If he
wants to accuse me, as he has done, of publishing a bad
book with a good intent, he ought to amend the indictment,,
which has been so clumsily drawn up. If you refer ta
Archbold, you will see that the ordinary indictment for selling"
an obscene book is very different to that to which I
am called Upon to plead to-day. You are told in this indict-
ment that we intend, and devise, and contrive to corrupt
the morals of youth as much as in us lies, and it then goes
on to give the very coarsest possible description of the book.
It seems to me as if the learned counsel who drew this up

had gone through every indictment he could find, and had
picked out every unpleasant adjective which could prejudice
us with those to whom we have to plead, and had thrown
them together into this. The learned Solicitor-General says
it was too much trouble to put the whole of the book into
the indictment ; but I say that unless every page of the
pamphlet is indecent, you cannot convict us on this indict-
ment. We have then to deal with a prosecution which
endeavours to do too much, and which is likely, therefore,
to do nothing. But, gentlemen, the malice of the prosecu-
tion has overreached itself Since no distinction is drawn
between one part of the book and the other, you must find
that the whole of it is obscene before you convict me. You
must take the whole book. You have heard the preface
read — and I was very glad that the learned Solicitor-General
did so read it — are you prepared to say that the preface is
an obscene, immodest, and disgusting production ? Unless
you include the preface in your verdict, you must acquit
the book in your verdict. The very way the indictment
has been framed makes it fatal to the prosecution.
But you have got more to do than to find the whole
of the book obscene. You have got to find that our
object in publishing it was to vitiate and corrupt
the morals of youth as of divers others, and unless you
believe that to have been our object, no verdict can be given
against us on this indictment. I am perfectly aware that
you must allow the intention to exist if you can prove that
the work is thoroughly obscene ; but then you must get at
the intent. Take the case of two men, one of whom has a
pistol, and the second man, who has not a pistol, is found
shot. It does not follow that the second man, even if found
with the pistol in his hand, has been guilty of murder. If
that man were set before you on the charge of murder, you
would find out what the intent was which might have
governed his actions. You would ask if there had been
malice between them, or quarrels between them, in the time
that had gone. You would ask what intention perhaps was
in the mind of the man who shot, before you would bring *
him in guilty of the murder of his fellow man. I put
it to you that much more, in dealing with a medical book,
you must show the intent to be malicious, before you can,
by any possibility, bring in a verdict of guilty against mv^
here. The Solicitor-General says the intent is good. If
that be so, the duty of the Solicitor-General is to get up and

•say that he drops the charge against us, for as the indict-
ment falls through by his own admission, he has no right to
keep you here wasting your time on an indictment which he
himself confesses is bad. But, then, he puts it, that the
intent does not matter. I say, gentlemen, that the intent is
the vital part of the charge. The intent of the book
is what you really will have to judge. The learned
Solicitor-General put that strongly when he said there
was a colourable pretence of philosophy, a colourable
use of the word marriage, when really what was intended
was not to give philosophy, but gratification of passion —
not to teach married people how to restrain their families,
but to teach the unmarried how wrongly to gratify their
passions. How utterly untrue that is I shall show you as I
go on through the pages of this book. The intent in a
medical book must be taken to be the very essence of the
character of the book. If Sir James Paget wrote a book
simply on the diseases of the generative organs, no kind of de-
scription of those organs could make the book obscene, because
Sir James Paget would write the book not with the intention
of corrupting the mind, but with the intention of curing ths
diseases with v/hich he dealt. In every book that contains
physiological details, the intent, therefore, is the very essence
of the charge. The intent makes the difference between
decency and indecency. Amedical bookwhich describes these
organs with the intent of a useful purpose is a proper book,
and a book that may rightly be published. A medical book
that makes such description with the intent to arouse
passions is a bad book, and against such an indictment
\vould fairly lie. I am not talking nov/ whether or not it
would be wise to prosecute a book of that kind, because I
hold that such a prosecution really spreads the book more
widely than otherwise it would be ; but I must acknowledge
that every medical book may be read for a bad purpose by
an impure mind. There is no question that with great
medical men (although the learned Solicitor-General says
he does not care about medical men, and that we are not to
talk to him about medical men, or to tell him what they
have written) — I must submit to you that it is not wise,
that it is not moral (for I hold morality to be that which
makes individuals and societies happier and better than
they were before, and wiser than they were before) — it does
not conduce to morality to say that these men shall not
spread knov/ledge, because that knowledge may be made

impure by the impure minds that read it. Every bookj.
however good the book may be — any of your old classicSj,
any of your standard Enghsh works, may be read for the
vilest purposes, if the impure mind is to be permitted
to characterise them and put upon them the shame that only
comes from its own obscene impurity. Then I will put it to
you, and I will venture here, instead of using my own
words, to plead in the words of one of our mightiest advo-
cates— that Erskine, whose name is known as one of our
mightiest pleaders wherever the English language has made
its way. The case is that of The King v. J. Lambert,
J. Perry, and J. Grey, for a seditious libel, in " Howell's
State Trials," 22nd vol. Erskine says: — "When a man
accused of libel is brought before a jury, they are to con-
sider only the mind and intention with which the matter was
WTitten ; and, accordingly as they shall find that, they are to^
form their decision of guilt or innocence.'^ Gentlemen,
that is the contention I am raising to you — that you are to
think of our minds and intents in publishing this book ; and
I take publishing to be the same as writing a book ; and
according to that you are to find us guilty or innocent. Mr.
Erskine goes on : — " The jury are to dismiss from their
minds every other consideration, and allow themselves to be
biassed by no motive of party or of political convenience.
There is this essential difference between criminal and civil
cases: in criminal cases, the jury have the subject entirely
in their own hands; they are to form their judgment
upon the whole of it; not only upon the act
alleged to be criminal but the motive by which it was influ-
enced, the intention with which it was committed, and,
according to their natural sense of the transaction, they
ought to find a man innocent or guilty : and their verdict is.
conclusive. Not so in civil cases. In these the jury are
bound to abide in their decision by the law as explained by
the judge ; they are not at liberty to follow their own
opinions. For instance, if I am deprived of any part of my
property, the loss of my property lays a foundation for
an action, and the fact being found, the jury are bound to
find a verdict against the person who has occasioned my loss,
whatever might be his intentions. Here the judge pronounces
the law, the jury only find the fact. The law and the fact
are as distinct and separate as light from darkness, nor can
any verdict of a jury pass for a farthing in opposition to the
law as laid down by the judge, since the courts have a

power to set such a verdict aside. But in criminal cases
the very reverse has been immemorially established — the
law and the fact have been inseparably joined; the intention
of the party accused is the very gist of the case. We are
criminal only in the eyes of God and man as far as
the mind and intention in committing any act has
departed from the great principles of rectitude by which
we are bound as moral agents, and by the indispensable
duties of civil society. It is not the act itself, but the
motive from which it proceeds that constitutes guilt."
I ask you to bear that passage in mind, from one of the
highest authorities in a court like this. When you are
considering your verdict after the defence is made, Erskine
reminds you : ^' You are solemnly set in judgment on the
hearts of the defendants in the publication of this paper.
You are to search for their intention by every means which
can suggest itself to you. You are bound to believe in
your consciences that they are guilty of malicious and
wicked designs before you can pronounce the verdict of
guilty. It is not because one of them pubhshed the paper,
or because others are the proprietors of it, but because they
were or were not actuated by an evil mind, and had sedi-
tious intentions, that you must find them guilty or not
guilty.'' And Erskine states, gentlemen, that that was the
law as laid down by the celebrated Hale ; and I am sure, in
putting it to you so, you will see the authority with which I
am dealing here. He points out in another place that this
had been contested in earUer days, but in his own time it
was made law; and then, in dealing with this very case, where
a book was held to be libel against the king, but where,
because the intent of the publisher was good, no sentence
was ever passed upon him, and the jury refused to find
him guilty of a publication with malicious intent, as
charged in the indictment ; in dealing with that
Erskine says : If you give the defendants the
credit of honest feelings and upright intentions, on my
part any farther defence is unnecessary ; we are already
in possession of your verdict ; you have already pro-
nounced them not guilty; for you will not condemn
the conduct when you have acquitted the heart." That,
gentlemen, is Erskine's speech in pleading to the jury,
and I will ask you to remember that if you bring me in
guilty on this indictment you will have done it only because
you beheve my intent to have been bad, believe my desire

C a

is to coirupt and deprave the young ; and unless you find
that, you are bound in justice, you are bound to give me a
verdict of Not Guilty. Then the learned Solicitor-General
turns to the case of the Queen v. Hicklin, and points out
that the good intent of the publisher cannot be held to
protect the work. But we find there that the work was
an utterly obscene w^ork, and in that part which the learned
Solicitor-General read (and I was glad to hear him read it,
because Lord Chief Justice Cockburn at that time made
practically the very contention which I shall plead to you
to-day) it was put that if the book was utterly obscene no
amount of good intention could justify the publication of
obscene matter. That book was to show that the questions
asked in the confessional were depraving to the mmd,
and would vitiate the morals of youth. The whole of
the object of the book, and the publication of the book,
would fall to the ground unless the matter contained in the
book was obscene. The very contention of the publisher
was that the contents depraved and demoralised. Well, if
they depraved and demoralised in the confessional box, they
would do so still more when printed and circulated to the
public in a book. The contention of the publisher des-
troyed his own case. Gentlemen, unless the book contained
obscene matter there was no reason for the publication of
the book for which he was put on his trial. This case of the
Queen v. Hicklin does not in any fashion touch the case on
which you are called to pass your judgment. I know the
.learned Solicitor-General says that some of the worst quota-
tions in the book were veiled in learned language, and that
. side by side with them were placed some of the very
■■ strongest observations against their character. These observa-
tions condemned the book which the publisher had issued, for
if he thought the questions in the confessional depraved and
■demoralised, he must have known that they would be likely
vto do the same thing with whoever should read them. But
you don't pretend to say that physiology is in itself indecent,
and you will find Lord Mansfield saying in the case of the
King V. Woodfall : Where an act is in itself indifferent, if
done with a particular intent it becomes criminal ; then the
intent must be proved and found. But where the act is in
itself unlawful (as in this case), the proof of justification or
excuse lies on the defendant, and in failure thereof the law im-
plies a criminal intent.'' You cannot pretend that physiology
is in itself an indecent thing ; you cannot say that medical studies

are m themselves indecent. All you can say is that physiology
may be used for an indecent purpose and may be made the
cover of indecent suggestions. We come, then, to the v^^^ry
case Lord Mansfield puts where the act is in itself indifferent
and only becomes criminal when the intent is a criminal
intent. The intent in the case of the Queen v, Hicklin v/as
to break the law, and the Lord Chief Justice laid down that
where a man publishes a work manifestly obscene he has
no right to say that he breaks the law with a good intent.
Gentlemen, I admit that to the very fullest extent. I admit
that there is no justification in law for publishing an obscene
book. I admit that if this book is obscene no amount of
good and pure intentions on my part can possibly purge it
from its obscenity. I bow thoroughly here to the judgment
laid down by the Lord Chief Justice in this case. But I
contend that this book is not an obscene book, and that
therefore the case of the Queen v, Hicklin has no authority
here. I v\iil pass, then, to the matter of the book. I say
that the matter is not obscene ; that our intent in
publishing the matter was good ; that the knov/ledge con-
veyed in the book is useful and necessary, and that, because
it is useful and necessary that knowledge ought to be
within the reach of all. Unless you disbelieve, gentle-
men, the whole of what I am going to say to you —
unless you believe not only that the book is obscene — and
if you do that you will be branding with the stigma of ob-
scenity every great surgeon and medical man of eminence
that has made our English name known throughout the
world for our books ; and I acknowledge that I reverence
the medical profession for the work they do, and I trust you
will not be a party to branding as obscene those men into
whose hands at the most critical moment you place the
health of your wives, your daughters, and your sisters ! — a
verdict of guilty, or not guilty, does not depend upon
whether you approve of that book or not. It does not depend
on w^ietheryou may think that there are passages in it which had
better not have been there. It does not depend on that ; nor
is it enough you might have thought some of the language coarse,
although the Solicitor-General has kindly stated that the lan-
guage is free from any taint of vulgarity. You niust take one
part with the other. Turning to the case of the King a^^ainst
Daniel I. Eaton for publishing a libel, you find this plainly
put by the Judge himself, the Recorder who summed up
the evidence, which I hold to be analogous to the case

before you : " If the book was published as the work of a
philosopher, for the benefit of mankind, then this man will
not have to answer for the publication. If published with a
malicious view, then he will have to answer for it, if you
are convinced of the fact of publication/'

The Lord Chief Justice : AVhat was the nature of the
publication ?

Mrs. Besant : There, again, it was a case of a blasphe-
mous libel, one of the many cases brought up at that time.

Mr. Bradlaugh : It was for publishing one of Paine's
works.

Mrs. Besant : We find here, in this same case, that it
was put that you must give a verdict upon the whole
matter put in issue before you, that you must affirm every
allegation in the indictment to be true; that if you dis-
believe and negative any one allegation, you are bound to
find the defendants not guilty. Gentlemen, I will ask you
to remember that, when you go away to consider your
verdict ; I will ask you to take a copy of the indictment
with you and read it through, and say solemnly whether,
on your oath, you can find every count in that indictment
has really justified you in a verdict against us; and if I
press this specially upon you, gentlemen, it is because I
feel that in this matter I have so much to lose if your
verdict should go against me, and I will ask you, therefore,
if at any time during the trial (which may, in some parts,
perchance, become wearisome to you), if, at any moment,
you think you are kept here to your own annoyance and
inconvenience, I ask you to put that momentary annoyance
of, at the utmost, but a few days' detention in a crowded
court, against the penalty which lies on me, unless I
can succeed in obtaining a verdict of not guilty — a
penalty which does not mean confinement for a few
days, or for any length of time which the judge can
sentence, but which means, practically, almost the
extinction of my future life until I can wipe off the stain
which your verdict, if guilty, will put upon me. Do not
mistake me by thinking that I should think myself guilty ; I
should not do so. I have done this thing with full thought
and with full knowledge of the responsibility I incurred.
Knowing it all, I should proceed to do it again, with the
experience I have had since my arrest. I should bring in
myself not guilty, whatever your verdict might be at the end
of the trial. Now, alleging our intent to be good Cand I

"hold myself and Dr. Kno^ylton to be identical in the matter,
for the words in the preface, where we said we did not agree
in everything, were not intended in any 'fashion to avoid the
xesponsibility of the publication of every word in the
pamphlet), I acknowledge the responsibility to the very
fullest extent — I stand responsible for every word from
beginning to end. I challenge, practically, your verdict by
the course I have taken, and, therefore, I am willing to take
the responsibility of every syllable in the pamphlet. Let
me, for a moment, deal with the word obscene, for on your
consideration of that word will practically come your verdict
in this matter. I contend that the book is not an obscene
book, and you get the difficulty here that you have no statutory
definition of the word obscene. You have not only na statutory
definition of the word, but you have not even any unchallenged
authoritative judgment on the matter, for I shall show you
presently, dealing with the Lord Chief Justice's remarks, that
the circumstances of that case unfortunately prevented him
from giving a carefully defined meaning of the word,
simply because the matter was admittedly obscene on every
hand. In almost all other offences, you know with what
offences you are dealing. Take murder. Murder is care-
fully defined in books of law. Take manslaughter : that is
also carefully defined, and if you are in any doubt, you
have only got to turn to the accepted legal authority and
then judge whether the prisoner has committed a certain
act or not ; you are able to say whether he has committed
a murder, or whether he has only committed what is called
manslaughter. But you have no such thing to help you
when you are dealing with the offence of an obscene libel.
So far as I can find, I have not been able to discover a single
case where a book, incriminated as this one has been, has
been defended on the ground that the book was not an obscene
book. Palliations have been brought in, excuses have been
made, circumstances that made it justifiable have been caused
tobepleaded, but I cannot find one case through the whole Eng-
lish law where the publisher accused of publishing an obscene
hook has stood up and said that the book did not contain bad
matter, and has stood by it. That makes it very difficult for a
jury to decide whether a book comes within the scope of the
law. One might almost put it to you — though I do not
intend to base my case on that ground — that no book ought
to be considered as obscene which does not incite to the
commission of those acts which are defined by the law to be

obscene, because, when you come to obscene acts, you find
these acts laid down and specialised in the law books, and an
obscene book may be fairly taken to be a work which incites
to the commission of those obscene practices which are indict-
able under the common law as misdemeanours. For the pur-
poses of this trial, I take a narrower definition than this. I put
it to you that an obscene book is a book ^Svritten for the single
purpose of corrupting the morals of youth, and of a nature
calculated to shock the feelings of decency in any well-regu-
lated mind." That is the definition on which I stand for my
trial, and that definition is at least worthy of some reverence
in this court when I tell you it comes from Lord Camp-
bell, a man who was in the very highest position in
our land, and who brought in the very act under which the
seizure-warrant was issued which was brought to search at
Stonecutter Street. I am quoting from Hansard, vol. 146,
No. 2, page 329. It is a definition, gentlemen, which I put
before you as the true definition of the word obscene." And!
I am the more glad to do that because it thoroughly coin-
cides with the words of the learned judge in the case of the
Queen v. Hicklin, which was put before you. You will find
him saying that " I think the test of obscenity is this : where
the tendency of the matter charged with obscenity is to de-
prave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such
immoral influences, and into whose hands publications of
this sort may fall." That is what my Lord Chief Justice
Cockburn laid down as the law ; and, as I pointed out to
you, it was, perhaps, unfortunate that the circumstances of
the case did not enable his lordship to give us a thoroughly
careful definition, which would have been so invaluable to
us for our guidance on llie trial of to-day. But on that
trial there was no question raised as to whether the matter
published was obscene or not, for on all hands it was
admitted that the subject-matter was obscene ; and
v/here it was taken that the work was an obscene
publication, the learned judge would have been going
out of his way if he had carefully laid down a strait de-
finition in what obscenity consisted. I will put it to you
that obviously the Lord Chief Justice meant the same as Lord
Campbell meant, and that the single word "well-regulated"
should be inserted. The opinion of the two learned judges
thoroughly coincided on that matter — a vital point; and that
well-regulated " is implied in the case of the Queen ^r.
Hicklin. I cannot put it to you too strongly that it must

be a well-regulated mind which has to be dealt with in a
question of this kind. Should you say that the book is to be
adjudged obscene because some utterly ill-regulated mind
found something which raised wrong passions or impure
desires ? You must take the normal mind — the normally-
regulated mind — and think of the influence the book would
have upon that, for to the impure mind the purest book
will have a bad effect, because you get the reflection of the
mind in the book. In dealing with the word obscene on
any wider definition you will find yourself making a law
which will have the most unfortunate effect in the time to
come. In this very case you find a debate in the House
of Lords, and of course I am not going to put this in
evidence here, but simply as showing you the difficulties
into which you will plunge the law if you take a wider
definition than that of Lord Campbell. You find Lord
Lyndhurst putting the objection that might easily arise.
He objected to Lord Campbell because he said, " what
is the interpretation which will be put on the word
obscene ? "I can easily conceive (he says) that two
men will give an entirely different conception as to
the meaning of the word," and then you find him
drawing a picture of a detective officer going into a print-
seller's or a bookseller's, under the new act, and asking for
photographs of all the most celebrated pictures, by the
greatest masters, going w^ith these photographs to the police
magistrate, and not saying what the picture was intended to
represent, and then getting a v/arrant from the magistrate to
destroy all the works, which might include some of the
greatest productions of art. The difficulty is, that if you are to
allow the word obscene to be stretched into meaning any-
thing which is coarse, which deals with the human figure,
you must make a clean sweep of your literature and
your art right through. I don't mean to say that because
there is not another book before you, you should acquit
the book which is before you ; but I ask you where you
will land yourself if by a verdict of guilty you are going
to include books under Lord Campbell's Act, which were
never intended to be included in it when the act was
drawn? Nothing can be stronger than the way in w^hich
Lord Campbell put it that he did not intend to put
down medical works, physiological treatises, and standard
authors; and yet every one of them might be practi-
cally put dovv^n, if by a verdict of guilty here you make every

common spy and informer able to go to the shops of the
best publishers of London, and put them to the annoyance
and expense of such a prosecution as this, simply because
by a verdict of guilty against us you will have given a verdict
of guilty against every one of them. I think I may fairly
argue that the difference between coarseness and obscenity
is this — that obscenity is coarseness written with intent to
corrupt, with intent to vitiate, with intent to destroy the
good feelings and arouse the evil ones. Coarseness has not
that meaning; it is low, it is revolting, but it does not
endeavour to corrupt. The learned Solicitor-General pointed
out a passage which, by itself, he thought would move your
feelings, and I think he was wise in the matter of not read-
ing the whole of the book to you, for if he had done so
you would have seen that what he read as obscene was
simply a part of the whole work. Take this passage from
^' Tristram Shandy," and judge what would be the feelings
of some people in hearing it read out in public ; I shall not
read it, but will simply hand it up to you.

The Solicitor-General : I am very reluctant to inter-
fere, my lord ; but I think I must take your judgment
whether or not such passages ought to be read.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I should submit, respectfully, that it
has been decided over and over agam, that if we prove the
publication of a work — and no work will be produced w^hich
we are not prepared to prove the publication of — we shall
have the right to put in the passages as evidence at any
rate, if not to read them as part of the defence.

The Lord Chief Justice : How can two negatives make
an affirmative?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not put it on that ground, my
lord ; but there have been some very strong arguments as
to the right to refer to other publications

The Lord Chief Justice : Have you got the authority ?

Mrs. Besant : It is in the case of the King v. Carlile.

The Lord Chief Justice : Well, I remember a case
that the late Serjeant Thomas defended here in which,
upon an indictment of a similar character, I do not think it
was reported, but I happened to be present in court ; he
read a long string of passages, and referred to a variety of
public representations.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I shall be prepared to argue the point
later on, my lord. I have the case looked up, but I did not
think it would arise so soon.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then, perhaps, this would be
a convenient time to adjourn ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : If your lordship pleases.
The Court then adjourned for lunch.
After the adjournment,

Mr. Bradlaugh said that, with regard to putting in the
publication "Tristram Shandy," it was not intended by the
defendants to do so in any way as evidence, but they
were entitled to read or to communicate it to the jury as
part of the defence.

The Lord Chief Justice : I have been consulting with
my learned brothers, and they agree with me that it is so. I
am bound to reject every publication as evidence, but I
can't prevent Mrs. Besant from committing a passage to
memory and reciting it as part of her speech, nor from
reading from a book as if reciting from memory. But the
book is not evidence, and need not be proved, nor must it
be handed to the jury.

Mr. Bradlaugh : There is a curious case, but, unfortu-
nately, it is only the informal report of a Recorder's opinion.
It is the case of the King v. Carlile, . in which a reference
to a public newspaper was objected to because, as was said
by Mr. Adolphus, it might have been printed in the defen-
dant's back shop ; and the Recorder said to Mr. Carlile,
^' If you mean to read that, you must prove its publica-
tion."

The Lord Chief Justice : A person could not be sup-
posed to recollect the whole of it. [To Mrs. Besant]. You
can read anything you wish.

Mrs. Besant : I do not propose to read any quotations
from Tristram Shandy," my lord ; it would be an utter
waste of the time of the Court. I was stopped when
I was going to hand up to you "Tristram Shandy," and the
Solicitor-General objected to the book being put in evidence.
I quite agree that books ought not to be put in evidence
on any point unless the publication of these books be proved,
because if you do that you would open the door to a large
amount of abuse ; and, although we might not take advan-
tage of it, it might seriously, if it were permitted by the learned
judge, prejudice or unfairly decide trials in the future.
Therefore, I do not think it would be worth while to read
any passages of " Tristram Shandy " to you, although if it
had been permitted and thought right by the learned judge,
you might haved glanced at a single passage, and have seen

how far one passage might be used to destroy a vrliole
book if, as the Solicitor-General has done, you were to pick
out a passage most likely to prejudice the book. I simply
want to show to the jury how books which you find in the
library of every gentleman who has any pretence to culture
or education might be branded in the same way, and
put down by an ignorant jury as obscene publications.
I have one great advantage — I do not for one mo-
ment conceal it from myself — and that is the fact that
it has been thought right in this case to give us the very
great advantage of a special jury, because, to hand up to an
ignorant jury a passage from ^'Tristram Shandy" would be
utterly condemnatory of the whole book ; but from the cir-
cumstances of your education, and from your having had
the opportunity of becoming perfectly familiar with the
whole of our standard EngUsh literature., I feel that I have
nothing to fear from a miscarriage of justice, such as I
might fear from a jury less cultivated. I put it to you that
in any one of those books which every one of you have in
your libraries, you could find passages which, if taken by
themselves, might be said to have a tendency to vitiate
and corrupt, and I think I shall not be dealing unfairly if
I say to you that in every great dramatist of England you
would find such passages. I take Shakespeare as an ex
ample, whom no one would desire to see blotted out of
our literature, and imagine that some spy of some society —
we will say of the Society for the Suppression of Vice — took
one of Shakespeare's poems, such as ^' Venus and Adonis,"
and founded a prosecution on it. We all know that it would
break down. But you must not forget that a publisher's
prosecution means an enormous amount of damage to him,
whether a verdict is obtained or not. Some people (two
or three in every town) devoted to us, and wishing to
serve us in the same way that Hetherington was served^
though most unwisely, might institute prosecutions against
other booksellers for selling works of a similar character.
Imagine the number of prosecutions to which your verdict
would give rise. You would throw open prosecutions against
every bookseller in London, with the exception, perhaps, of
some httle publisher who has not the power or the capital
to publish books that the public want to read. You do not
want to throw open the door to every mischievous man
who seeks notoriety, to prosecute such publishers as
Churchill, Lonizman, and Smith. I might also allude to the

works of Mr. Bohn, who will be one of the witnesses for
the defence in this case, and whose Standard Library gives
text-books for the education of your sons in every public
school in England. Do you want to offer a premium to
every miserable spy, who may wish to ruin these men by
the chance he possesses of getting a verdict in his favour ?
I would remind you that you are going to take the effect of lan-
guage into your consideration, and you will see that the com-
parison between Knowlton and these dramatists, on the ques-
tion of the effect on the passions, is in Knowlton's favour,
because medical books have no tendency to arouse sexual
feelings. If you want a book of an improper character you
must carefully avoid physiological works. Your common
sense tells you that a medical book is a book that no man
or woman would read for the purpose of arousing sexual
passions of any kind. I will come to that in a later portion
of my speech. If you want to arouse sexual passion you
might do so by some foul w^orks, and you might even do so
by some of the grandest of our dramatists and novelists.
You will find passages calculated to arouse sexual passion
in Fielding, Congreve, and Wycherley, but you will never
arouse that passion by dry physiological details put forward
in dry technical language. I put that to you because I
•say that while the language in many of these books w^ould
arouse the sexual passions far more than the language of
any medical book, it would be an utter blunder — I say it
would almost be a crime — to prosecute these books because
of occasional coarse passages in them. If you are going to give
a verdict of guilty against me — a verdict that means to me
the momentary destruction of all that I work for — you must
make up your minds that no statement that certain passages
might be more carefully worded will authorise you in giving
that verdict. I say to you, remember that in the days to
come you will never free your minds from the remembrance
of what is happening in this court. The verdict that you give
maymean to us almost destruction — destruction againstwhich
we are strong enough to fight — destruction that will not
ultimately touch our future very much, though unkind things
may be said about it. If you give a verdict thoughtlessly,
carelessly, or indifferently, carried away by prejudice against
me and my co-defendant — if, I say, you give a verdict against
us which you would not give against your wife, your daughter,
or your brother — a verdict based not on evidence, but based
on a prejudice against us because of other work in which we

have been engaged, I remind you at the very outset of this
case that a great responsibiUty rests upon you, and that you
will remernber during all the remainder of your lives the
verdict you will give at the close of this trial. I do not say
so to prevent you from giving a verdict of guilty. Every
Englishman and citizen has the duty to discharge the functions
of juror without any regard to the consequences that will flow
from his verdict to those whom he convicts of crime. But
I say, do not let any carelessness or thoughtlessness prevent
your giving your whole brains and hearts to a decision that,
is vital to us both. I have now to remind you of the
definition of obscene, v/hich I put forward, and I ask you to
bear it in mind ; I do not propose to repeat the arguments,
but simply to read the words upon which I rely. If
you are to narrow it down to the definition of Lord
Campbell, he says that his Act is intended to apply to
works ^Svritten for the single purpose of corrupting the
morals of youth, and which are of a nature calculated to
shock the common feelings of decency in any well-
regulated mind." We stand or fall upon the definition. I
remind you — and unless you take Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet
to be written with the single (but not possible) purpose, in
the mind of the writer, and in the mind of the publisher
(which for the purposes of this trial are identical) — unless you
think it written for the single purpose of corrupting the
morals of youth, you have no right to bring in a verdict of
guilty against us ; and I lay stress upon this, because Lord
Campbell says, "The question whether the pictures or
books impugned were obscene or not, is to be left
to the jury to decide." My lord, I don't know whether I
am going out of my case, but I think if the hght could be
prevented falhng on the jury-box, it would be an improve-
ment. It is a great point to me to keep the jury in good
temper, my lord. (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice directed that this incon-
venience should be stopped, and added : I must do you
the justice to say, that up to this time you have said
nothing that could produce any other result.

Mrs. Besant : If I say anj^thing that goes further, it will
be because I think it necessary to win my case, and that is
vital to me. The Solicitor-General made one remark which I
had the pleasure of agreeing with, and I did not agree with
much that feir from my antagonist's lips. He said that you
are the guardians of public morals. There is no point on

which I feel more strongly than the value of our present
system of law, and it is because of that that my co-defendant
and myself, instead of publishing the work and leaving it ta
be prosecuted, thought it the best plan to challenge the
verdict of a jury, because we believe that the verdict of a
jury is the right, legal, and constitutional fashion of settling
questions of this kind ; so much is this the case, that the
jury have the whole decision in their hands in these cases.
I have no doubt that the learned Judge on the bench would
endorse what I say to you, when I put it that even the judge's
opinion is not binding on the jury. The judge has a right to
lay down the law and explain the law, and the jury has the
duty of finding a verdict in accordance with the law, and I
press that upon you, for while I don't want for a moment
to pretend that the Lord Chief Justice will rule against us ;
while I have the utmost confidence in his complete and
thorough impartiality in this case — feeling sure that
what he believes to be right he will say without
favouring either the one or the other, and without fear
of anything outside which may go in favour of one side
rather than the other — while I have the most complete con
fidence in him, I do not want that one single member of
the jury should for one moment imagine that he can throw
his responsibility upon the learned judge who lays down the
law in this case. I am dealing with a question on which I
might pile up authorities one after the other ; I do not
intend to do that, although in a case so important as this
I must guard myself step by step by those precedents
of English justice which are the real safeguards of justice in
our land. I will point out to you that the Lord Chief
Justice Eyre, dealing with the case of the King v.
Hardy — and I am now quoting from proceedings taken ia
the Old Bailey in a case of high treason — a case where the
life of a man hung upon the decision of a jury — you will
find that Lord Chief Justice Eyre distinctly lays down that
the responsibility lies upon the jury, and not upon the
judge : " Every verdict upon a clear point of fact ought to be
the jury's own choice, and in a case of this nature more parti-
cularly so, because, to be sure one great object of this-
prosecution is, that the country may be satisfied, that they
may see that the public justice of it has taken its fair course,
and that the prisoner has that deliverance made for him
which the laws and constitution of the country in his case
call for." He laid it down that the responsibility of the

verdict did not He with the judge. I find that the Right
Hon. Chief Justice Pennefather, dealing, thirty or forty
years ago, with one of those cases that aroused so much the
popular feeling of the country — the case of The Queen
V, Daniel O'Connell and others that I find in Shaw's
State Trials for 1844," — the judge laid down the doctrine
that, whatever the judge's oj^inion might be, the jury were
the constitutional judges to determine and to come to a
just conclusion." And you will also find that Erskine, to
whom I referred before, pointed out that the jurymen were
the real judges, and added that they were to examine the
judge's opinion as rigorously as that of the advocate at the
bar"; and the curious point in that case is, that, while
the judge summed up directly against the prisoner, the jury
gave a verdict against the judge. Gentlemen, I put these
cases before you because I desire you to feel that it
is not possible for you to shift in any way the
responsibility on to his lordship, in whom rightly and
naturally you must have such thorough trust. If this
question were by English law to be decided by him, I
should be fully content to put my fate in his hands ; but
when the English law bars the judge from the verdict, and
gives it to the hands of the jury, then I must remind you
that you cannot evade your responsibihty. The learned
Solicitor-General told you that you are the guardians of
public morals ; and if you give a verdict against us, it will
make a grave breach of morality, which it will take many
decisions to cure. If I say that, do not think that I say it
because I have not confidence in the verdict of twelve men,
sworn to do justice between the Queen and ourselves. I
do not forget what Whiteside put so well in his great case,
when he was speaking on behalf of some of those who
were tried with Daniel O'Connell. Although an advocate
there, you cannot forget that Whiteside afterwards became
Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and, gave from the bench proofs
of that genius which he had so long shown at the bar.
Gentlemen, the question for your consideration is vWiethcr
in days to come you would wish your names to be handed
down to posterity amongst the juries who by their verdicts
have induced freedom, or whether they shall be handed
down with those who have narrowed freedom, those who,
in cases such as this, wheiein liberty of discussion has been
concerned, have returned verdicts of repression, verdicts
afterwards to be reversed, as all such verdicts are, on

appeal to the higher court of posterity. Do you, gentle-
men, think for one moment that myself and my co-
defendant are fighting the simple question of the sale or
publication of this sixpenny volume of Dr. Knowlton's ?
Do you think that we would have placed ourselves in the
position in which we are at the present moment for the mere
profit to be derived from a sixpenny pamphlet of forty-seven
pages? No, it is nothing of the sort; we have a much larger
interest at stake, and one of vital interest to the pubUc, one
which we shall spend our whole lives in trying to uphold.
The question really is one of the right to public discus-
sion by means of publication, and that question is
bound up in the right to sell this sixpenny
pamphlet which the Solicitor-General despises on account
of its price. We are not fighting simply to obtain your
verdict for the sake of selling this work. I, personally^
don't care, if your verdict is in my favour, to sell another
copy. I sell it so long as the detective police spies and
secret agents of a society calling itself a Vice Society resort
to the practices that they do to get respectable booksellers
into trouble ; so long as that goes on, so long shall we
endeavour to uphold those principles v/hich we maintain
with reference to the right of public discussion, by fighting
this great battle until we win ultimate success. This
pamphlet is valuable to us just as is the piece of silk to
the soldier v/ho wins the battle ror his country : it is the
flag which represents the cause v/e have at stake. It is
w^ith that feeling — and that feeling alone — that we stand
here to-day to uphold the right to publish this pamphlet,
and I fight that I may make here the right of open
and free discussion on a great and important social
subject. There are various rights of speech v/hich
the public enjoy. The right of discussion in theology
is won ; the right of publicly discussing politics is won ; but
as to discussion on social subjects, there is at present no
right. There v/ill be this day week, if your verdict is in our
favour, because, you may depend upon it, that verdict once
given no one will ever go against it ; everyone will then
feel free to discuss a point of vital interest to society ;
but till that verdict, that right is not one which can be
exercised with impunity. However much you may dis-
agree with Dr. Knov/lton's theories — and I don't pre-
tend to agree with him on all his points — however much
I say you disagree, that is no reason v^'hy you should brand

his book as obscene. Difference of opinion is not to be taken
as proof of obscenity against any particular subject, and the
more you may differ in opinion from KnowUon so much the
more jealously should you guard his right of discussion. If
it were only to gain your sympathies with Dr. Knowlton's
work, I would not waste your time or mine here to-day ;
but it is because I want you, by your verdict, to lay down this
great and just principle — that opinion, honestly given
opinion, honestly expressed opinion, freely and fairly pub^
lished, shall not be prevented public expression because a
police-officer does not agree with the opinion so expressed
upon matters in which probably he is not at all informed.
I have in my hand the opinion of Mr. John Stuart Mill, in
which he treats of the right to free discussion : he says,
in his Essay on Liberty : " But I deny the right of the
people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves
or by their Government. The power itself is illegi-
timate : the best Government has no more title to it
than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious,
when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when
in opposition to it. If all mankind, minus one, were of one
opinion, and only one person were of the contrary
opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind.''
I put it to you that a medical work, published by a medical
man of eminence to raise a great public and social ques-
tion, must not be branded as obscene because you disagree
with it ; but the more you disagree the more you are bound
to give weight to the arguments we put forward here.
But, after all, does any single one of you believe that my
co-defendant and myself desired, in publishing this work,
that it should tend to corrupt the morals of the
public ? This is not a question merely of publishing an
indecent work. For what reason are we dragged here —
a man and a woman whose whole lives disprove the alle-
gation against us ? "What hidden motive is there for bring-
ing us here to answer so monstrous an accusation ? White-
side once said of a prosecution in which he defended the pri-
soner (and may not his words be used to-day with refer-
ence to the present proceedings?): "The whole object of
this unprecedented prosecution is to stifle the discussion
of a great public question. Viewed in this light, all other
considerations sink into insignificance ; its importance be-

comes vast indeed. Destroy the right of free discussion
and you dry up the sources of freedom. By the same
means by which your liberties were won can they be
increased or defended.'^ It is said that that principle
of free discussion may be carried too far, but Whiteside,
whom I have just quoted, deals with that point, in refer-
ence to prosecution on these matters. He holds that pro-
secutions, with regard to division of opinion, are unjust and
unfair, as I shall show you this prosecution is in a few
minutes. Quarrel not," he says, " with the partial evils free
discussion creates, nor seek to contract the enjoyment of
that greatest privilege within the narrow limits timid men
prescribe. With the passing mischiefs of its extravagance
contrast the prodigious blessings it has heaped upon
man. Free discussion gave to Europe the reforma-
tion, which I have been taught to believe the mightiest
event in the history of the human race — illuminated
the world with the radiant light of spiritual truth.
May it shine with steady and increasing splendour. Free
discussion gave to England the revolution, abolished
tyranny, swept away the monstrous abuses it rears, and
established the liberties under which we live. Free dis-
cussion, since that glorious epoch, has not only preserved,
but purified our constitution, reformed our laws, reduced
our punishments, and extended its wholesome influence
to every portion of our political system. The spirit of
inquiry it creates has revealed the secrets cf nature —
explained the wonders of the creation, teaching the know-
ledge of the stupendous works of God. Arts, sciences,
civilisation, freedom, pure religion, are its noble realities.
Would you undo the labours of science, extinguish literature,
stop the efforts of genius, restore ignorance, bigotry, barbar-
ism, then put down free discussion, andyou have accomplished
all. Savage conquerors, in the blindness of their ignorance,
have scattered and destroyed the intellectual treasures of a
great antiquity. Those who make war on the sacred right
of free discussion, without their ignorance, imitate their
fury. They may check the expression of some thought,
which might, if uttered, redeem the liberties or increase the
happiness of man. The insidious assailants of this great
prerogative of intellectual beings, by the cover under which
they advance, conceal the character of their assault upon the
liberties of the human race. They seem to admit the
liberty to discuss — blame only its extravagance, pronounce

D 2

hollow praises on the value of freedom of speech, and
straightway begin a prosecution to cripple or destroy it.''
That is exactly what our prosecutors are to-day trying to do ;
don't forget that stopping us in our object will only tend to
cause some others to rise on the same subject, who may da
better than those who went before them ; but if you find a
verdict of guilty against us you may stop the discussion of the
whole population question until we try the matter again,
I Vvill ask you whether, when I unfold to you the nature
of this prosecution, you will not feel that Knowlton is not
guilty of using the word marriage to cover obscenity, but
rather that the prosecution is using the name of Knowl-
ton to smother the right of free discussion and free press in
this country. Now, gentlemen, I must appeal to you on a
simple matter of justice. I must ask you to look at the
way in which this prosecution is conducted. I asked Detec*
tive Simonds what his weekly wage was, and how long he
had been in the detective force. Probably, when I asked
him those questions, you may have thought that I was asking
useless ones without an object, and although in most instances
you vfould have been right in considering they were not
directly to the issue, and therefore inadmissible according
to the laws of evidence, I asked them v/ith no idle intention.
I asked them for this reason — It is one of the principles of
English justice, that those accused shall be placed face to
face with their accusers, and shall understand who brings
them to answer before the bar of justice. Our difficulty in
knowing the aim of the prosecution is, that we don't know at
the present moment who is prosecuting us. When first we
were arrested and taken to the Guildhall we were kept waiting
for more than two hours shut up in the cold and uncomforta-
ble cells under the Guildhall court of justice. We were
then told that we were kept there to await the presence oi
the City Solicitor, who had the conduct of the prosecution.
Hearing that, we thought we were to fight a prosecution
conducted by the city authorities. We wrote to the City
Solicitor, and our belief was strengthened by his answer,
because the City Solicitor, writing on the paper of the
Corporation, using the stamp of the Corporation, and
signing under his name "City Solicitor," has only the right
to use the fundo of the city to conduct prosecutions for
the city authorities ; we naturally then believed that we were
being prosecuted by the city authorities. Imagine our aston-
ishment when on Air. Bradlaugh asking v/hether that was

so, we were told that " the Corporation of the City of London
has nothing and never had anything to do with the prosecu-
tion against you and Mrs. Besant 1 This came to us as a
greater surprise because Mr. Douglas Straight, instructed
by the City SoUcitor, said in open court that he appeared on
behalf of the Corporation. You may imagine that we found it
difficult to discover what private malice had been brought to
bear in the institution of the prosecution against us. We
tried to hnd out ; we wrote to the solicitor and he wrote us
telling us the Corporation had nothing to do with it,
xind referred us to the head of the Police of the
city, who in his turn, in answer, said he had nothing
to do with it and that we must refer to the information.
We found upon the information the name of William Simonds,
there being no address given. We wrote for the address, which
was furnished to us, and we then wrote to detective Wm.
Simonds asking if he were the man responsible. We
received in return merely an answer expressing his pleasure
at receiving our letter. Now Mr. Wm. Simonds has been
in the force for 13 years. He commenced at 28s. a week,
and has risen to 31s. 6d., and he has some clothes in addi-
tion. I will ask you to use your common sense whether Mr.
Wm. Simonds on 28s. a week, rising to 31s. 6d., has made
such large economies that he has been able to save sufficient
money out of his salary to find the fees and engage the
services of the Solicitor-General, Mr. Douglas Straight,
n.nd Ml. Mead, instructed by the City Solicitor, to prose-
cute us ? If it be possible to live upon so small a sum
of money and also put by sufficient means to fight one's
difficulties with the aid of a powerful retinue of legal ad-
visers such as the learned counsel engaged in this case, there
can be no necessity for appealing to Dr. Knowlton's
work with any desire to keep down one's family on the
ground of want of means. (Laughter.). Why, when Dr.
Knowlton's work was commenced to be published in Eng-
land—that was forty-two years ago — Mr. William Simonds
must have been a little boy. He must have made this pro-
secution the far-off ideal of his life, and undoubtedly he must
have commenced to have saved the 6d. or gd. a week, which
he should have spent in sugar-plums or toffee, to have then
commanded means sufficient to have retained the services of
the Solicitor-General and these other gentlemen. Now, sec
the position in which we stand with regard to this prosecu-
tion, v/hich is a disgrace to English justice. If we win. the

whole of the costs will fall on William Simonds — as the
country allows nothing for expenses — as the only responsible
prosecutor in this case. We know that the Queen is
nominally our prosecutor, but there is no public fund out
of which the costs of our prosecution can be paid. Where,
I should like to know, do the costs come from, and
who is hidden behind the city constable that they
refuse to let us and you know? If we win the verdict,
who is to pay the costs? Poor Wm. Simonds — is it
possible that we can look to him ? or are there people
hidden behind the coat of the city detective, of whom
we have a right to hear, and the hiding of whom tends
to open the door to the greatest scandal in the prose-
cution of public justice in this country ? Where has this
sudden virtuous inspiration sprung from ? I have a right
to assume its real origin, because our names have been
dragged into another prosecution which is being carried
on, and which was only commenced in order to prejudice
this case. Its representatives are here to-day, brought here
lest the failure of the Solicitor-General and the two
learned counsel whom he leads should need the fostering
care of these hidden abettors. Forty or fifty years ago there
was a society called the Society of Vice, but better known
as the Bridge Street gang ; in this Society, under cover of
a few respectable names, a herd of spies and informers
carried on their despicable work, and hunted down honest
booksellers, whose works are now lound on the shelves of
every thinker. This society sank out of sight under a
weight of shame and disgust, but it has again arisen, and is
once more at its foul work. It is to-day worthily represented
by its secretar}^, Mr. C. H. Collette, solicitor, and he boasts,
openly that he "prompts" the Solicitor-General against us.
That he is starting all these prosecutions is very suggestive, and
I ask you whether you will countenance a society like that,
sheltering itself under a police detective in order to prose-
cute a man and a woman who are spending their lives
in trying to do good to their fellow-creatures ? If you think
we are wrong in doing so, we must bow to the result of your
verdict ; but I submit that the whole conduct of this pro-
secution has been malicious and disgraceful, and I trust
that in a case like the present you will pause before you
give a prosecution, instituted as this one has been, any
encouragement. I now come to deal with the pamphlet itself.
The Solicitor-General has read the whole of the preface, and

has thus saved me from having to read it over again. Allo^v
me to refer to the history of the pamphlet. The Solicitor-
General exhibited a curious — if not a pretended — ignorance
on the subject when he spoke of " Mr. Knowlton." No
doubt the learned Solicitor-General's time has been so fully
occupied in the conduct of his wide criminal practice, that he
has had very little opportunity of studying the details of med-
ical works ; Mr. Chas. Knowlton might be anyone j but
Chas. Knowlton, M.D., is a medical man, who, by reason
of his position, has more right to deal with physiological
details than a layman. He was an M.D. in good practice
in Boston, which city is said to be considered by the Americans
as the "hub of the universe'' — the "hub," meaning the
acme of culture, of education, of scientific thought and ability.
Chas. Knowlton not only practised in Boston as a leading
physician, but he was also a contributor to the foremost scientific
journals of that city. That city is the American centre of pure
intellect, and the greatest proof that I can give you of the
qualifications of Dr. Charles Knowlton is the fact of his
contributing to those journals, when I tell you that those
leading medical journals of the city of Boston rank in the
same category as do the Z(2;2^:^/ and Obstetric Joimial published
in England. I point out that to you with a knowledge that
these are not matters of evidence, but because I think it
important to you to know that Dr. Charles Knowlton was not
only looked up to and respected throughout his native town
but throughout the v/hole of the United States. In con-
sequence of its not being evidence we did not think it
worth while to bring from America Messrs. Seaver& Mendum,
the proprietors of the leading Boston Freethought paper, to
prove that Dr. Knowlton was to their knowledge a man of blame-
less life. I contend that such observations as those of the
Solicitor-General should not be allowed to be brought
against the character of a man of Dr. Knowlton's capacity,
and that it is going too far, even in a criminal prosecution,
to cast unfair slurs on the name of a dead man. Dr. Knowl-
ton's book was published in America, and was largely sold
there. In 1833 it was published in London by Mr. James
Watson, who died the year before last. He also was a man
of unblemished life, who, while he had been prosecuted
by the Government for the sale of political and other
pamphlets,: now generally published, had never had the
smallest shadow cast upon him as seller of an indecent
book. He was one of those men who persisted in selhng

unstamped papers, and the penny newspaper press of this
country is the result of the struggles in which Mr. James
Watson took part ; it was the result of those struggles which
made it possible to sell for a penny those journals which
were previously sold bearing a sixpenny stamp. When he
died he was honoured by all who knew him, even by those
who had prosecuted him in his lifetime. That was how this
book was first issued forty-four years ago. Mr. James Wat-
son died, as I have already said,, about a year and a-half ago.
We had thought of putting his widow into the box to prove
the publication ; but in consequence of her ill-health, and
her desire not to be troubled with an examination in a pubhc
court, we have determined, in reverence for the memory
of her dead husband, not to bring her here against her will.
The book was not only sold by Mr. James Watson but
also by Messrs. Holyoake & Co. One of this firm was
Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, whose name is probably
fairly well known to you. The other w^as Mr. Austin Holy-
oake. He it was whose Thoughts in a Sick Room,"
written when he was dying, w^ere spoken of admiringly by
Miss Frances Power Cobbe, a lady whose opinions might
not be supposed to be favourable to such a man as Austin
Holyoake. He recommended this book, in a pamphlet of
his own, in conjunction with Robert Dale Owen's " Moral
Physiology,'' and the ^'Elements of Social Science," a book
which no one yet has had the courage to attack. It was
also sold by Brook & Co., 282, Strand, but I will not con-
ceal from you that the moment the prosecution v/as instituted
the last-named firm sold the copies they had at once, that
they might not stand in the same position as we stand in
to-day. It is not pleasant for booksellers to stand in such a
position, and I cannot blame them if they did not persist in
the sale of the pamphlet. From Mr. Flolyoake the book
went into the hands of a Mr. Charles Watts, and on James
Watson's death he bought the plates of the w^ork together
with many others from the widow. Flis plea to the indict-
ment of wilfully publishing an obscene book was, as you
know, a plea of guilty. The Solicitor-General, doubtless
from forgetfulness, entirely omitted any reference to that
trial, and spoke as though we republished the book because
of the Bristol affair. It is not the case that we published
the book because of the prosecution of the man named
Cook, at Bristol. We should never have troubled to repub-
lish a book because a man named Cook, at Bristol, had been

called up about it. It seems, from the reports I have seen,
that he was not really called up for this pamphlet, although
nominally he was prosecuted for it ; he was a bookseller of
known bad character, and he sold very few of these works,
because they are not written in a style which a vendor of
obscene literature would fmd it profitable to sell. It so
happened that this Mr. Charles Watts had published for my
co-defendant for some years, and for me for a short time,
thus somewhat connecting our names with his, and bringing
us into the disgrace of his yielding. Mr. Watts thought it
right to plead guilty, and I feel this fact is calculated to
prejudice our case, and that if you did not hear our defence
the very plea of guilty, put in by the man who published
the book, would make you put the book down to be one of
that set of obscene publications which are sold for the pur-
pose of making a large profit. We felt that the book could
not be given up in that fashion. Gentlemen, that book
had been published for more than forty years by those with
whom my co-defendant had worked, and whose work I have
inherited (for I have only come young into the work). That
book being so published, we felt it our duty to the dead
who had gone before, as well as to those yet living, that
no plea of guilty should be allowed to stand, and that im-
prisonment should be braved rather than that the stigma of
indecency should attach to those whom we reverence.
Neither Mr. Bradlaugh nor myself had previously had any-
thing to do with the purely technical details connected with
publication. We took this new work upon ourselves in
order that we might issue this book that everybody shrank
from issuing. We were not printers before, but we became
printers that we might print this book ; we became pub-
lishers that we might publish this book ; we took a shop
that we might sell this book ; and we did all this at a time
when danger attached to it, and we had nothing to gain and
nmch to lose by so doing. That, gentlemen, is the history
of the book. The Solicitor-General stated that the sub-title
of the book has been changed. Gentlemen, that is perfectly
true. The sub-title of the book used to be Private Com-
panion to Young Married Couples,'' or, Young Married
People." That sub-title is just like the title of Dr. Cha-
vasse's book. He calls his book "Advice to a Wife," and
Knowlton's was called "Advice to Young Married Couples."
Frankly, I don't like titles of that character. Dr. Chavasse's
book is a good and a useful book, and labelling it " Advice

to a Wife " gives a kind of suggestiveness to It, and hints
that you might get a special kind of knowledge, which is, I
think, a mistake when you are dealing with a book to be put
on railway bookstalls. But I hold that there is nothing
indecent or obscene in calling a book Advice to a Wife,"
or " Private Companion to Young Married People.''
Gentlemen, I have no experience of obscene literature ; I
have never seen a book which has been made the subject of
a prosecution such as this, but I understand that it is the
usual thing, where an obscene book is published, that the
printer's and publisher's names are omitted, and they so
evade responsibility. I may say there is no attempt at con-
cealment here, when you find that right through this book is
openly published ; first by James Watson (holding up the
works cited in turn), then by Holyoake & Co., then by
Austin & Co., then by Brook & Co., then once more pub-
lished by James Watson & Co. at a later address, then
pubhshed once more by James Watson at another address,
and, latterly, by the " Freethought Publishing Company,'^
bearing the imprint " Printed by Annie Besant and Charles
Bradlaugh." There is here throughout no concealment of
publisher or printer. Having once found how the responsi-
bihty of the printer might be treated when it was challenged,
we made up our minds to put our own names on everything
we published for the future, so that we alone might be re-
sponsible for every word we thought it right to issue to the
public. So much for the history of the pamphlet ; now for
the pamphlet itself. If it would not trouble you too much,
gentlemen, I would ask you kindly to mark the passages
with which I deal, because I don't want to give you the
trouble of going over the same ground twice. I will first
take the preface, for, although I thought that the preface
could not be attacked, I heard it read by the Solicitor-
General as part of the accusation. It might be thought that
the case for the prosecution was so small that he was obliged
to fill up the necessary time by reading ihe preface, for I
don't see anything obscene or immodest in it. But to
suggest that that could have been his object would be dis-
courteous to my learned antagonist. I will refer to a
passage at page 6, dealing with the publishers' preface, from
We publish this pamphlet " down to ''sound judgment."
I need not read it as you have already heard it read. The
Solicitor-General said' we do not '' agree " in our preface
with the medical views or the philosophical proem ; we

simply wanted to guard ourselves against endorsing every
one of the medical and metaphysical views of Dr. Knowlton.
The Solicitor-General put it that we did not agree with them,
but whether or not we agree with them, we are responsible
for them for the purpose of this trial. However much we
may disagree with Dr. Knowlton, we are responsible for
every syllable that he has written. I hold that everyone
who prints and publishes a book ought to be held to the
fullest extent responsible for that which he issues to the
public. I hold that nothing is so cowardl}^, nothing is so
mean or so disgraceful, as for a publisher to issue a book, or
for an editor to issue a journal, and then, when challenged
by the law, to shrink back and say I did not know what I
was doing.'' If publishers are not aware of what is in the
books they publish, they ought to be ; and if editors do not
know what is in their journals, they ought to know. You
have no safety for character, or for morality, or for any of
our valuable institutions, unless you make the publisher
responsible for everything which he issues. Therefore, in
saying that I don't endorse Dr Knowlton on some points,,
I don't want to shirk full responsibility for all he has here
written. That preface was written because we hold that,
on social questions, discussion is a vital necessity, and we
published Dr. Knowlton's views, not because we agreed
with him, but simply because we think that his viev/s
ought to be heard. I agree with Dr. Knowlton's principle ;
I think that some kind of check to population ought to be
adopted ; but when this preface was written, I did not know
enough of medical books to know whether his checks would
tend to promote health. I put it to yourselves that it is a
question very much discussed in France — what kind of
checks are healthy to the women and the children. You
must get that question settled, for on the question of the
health of the women and children depends the deterioration
or the improvement of the next generation. You cannot
settle that question unless you permit doctors to discuss
what checks are healthy and what are not. Amongst the
Trench doctors' books I have read in the course of this
defence, I have found some objections raised to some of the
checks put forward by Dr. Knowlton. But, I say, you
cannot deal with this question unless every man is free to
put forward his medical knowledge without fear of prosecu-
tion, or of the disgrace of obscenity being attached to the
book that he may issue. That may, perhaps, cover the

point of the Solicitor-General as to our agreement with
Knowlton. I will only, in the next page, page 7, draw your
attention to the three concluding Hues of the first paragraph,
wdth reference to the names of other w^orks being given in
foot notes. Not desiring that Dr. Know^ton's views should
"he taken without study, we thought it right to add the re-
ferences, so as to afford any one the opportunity of seeing
what might be said against as well as for. The preface
•says : We advocate scientific checks to population, because
so long as poor men have large families pauperism is a necessity
and from pauperism grow crime and disease." I shall have
to deal with that a little more fully later on, and I will only
put it to you now, that you have got before you a great
social question which is becoming more and more pressing
as every year goes by — a question the gravity of which is
recognised by men like John Stuart Mill, by men like Pro-
lessor Fawcettjby men like Professor Cairnes and Professor
Bain, as well as by some of those whom we shall put into the
witness box. I must put it to you that if pauperism is the
consequence of large families and that if from it grow
crime and disease, then you will be bound to bring in a verdict
of " not guilty," because we shall have shown that our object
in publishing this pamphlet was not in any way to arouse the
passions of the unmarried, but simply to prevent the curse of
pauperism, w^hich is becoming more and more a pressing
question with every iyear that rolls over our heads. You
wll now permit me to refer to the former publisher's preface,
which is not in the copy now before you. The Solicitor-
General thought it right to put it to you, without offering
one word of proof, that Dr. Knowlton used the word
^ married " to cover unmarried people, and that he really
meant to suggest promiscuous intercourse. In fact, he speaks
most warmly against it. You find he says : It is a notorious
fact that the families of the married often increase beyond
what a regard for the young beings coming into existence,
or the happiness of those who gave them birth, would dictate."
He goes on to say that m publishing the pamphlet his
only object is to enable married people to have some con-
trol over the number of children they bring into the world.
It is a fact that the object of this pamphlet, so far from
destroying marriage and so far from approving any kind of
illicit connection between the sexes — it is a fact that this
pamphlet is wTitten by Dr. Knowlton, and circulated by us
to-day, for the purpose which the learned judge suggested

v/as a question of great importance, that of making early
marriage possible to a very large number of young men to-
day. Our object is not to destroy marriage but to make
it more widely prevalent ; not to encourage prostitution, but
to destroy that which is a very prolific source of prostitutioi^,
the shrinking of young men from marriage because of the
terrible responsibility that marriage often brings with it^.
That is the object of my co-defendant and myself. I lay
stress upon another part of the preface, because the Solicitor-
General seemed to insinuate an objection to the idea : " with-
out even a partial sacrifice of the pleasure which attends the
gratification of the productive instinct.'^ I put it to you that
there is nothing v;rong in a natural desire rightly and properly
gratified. There is no harm in feeling thirsty because people
get drunk ; there is no harm in feeling hungry because
people over-eat themselves, and there is no harm in gratify-
ing the sexual instinct if it can be gratified without injury to
anyone else, and without harm to the morals of society, and
with due regard to the health of those whom nature has given
us the power of summoning into the world. I put it to yoa
gravely, that it is only a false and spurious kind of modesty,
which sees harm in the gratification of one of the highest
instincts of human nature — an instinct which goes through
all the world, not only in the animal but in the vegetable
kingdom ; if you are to blame Dr. Knowlton because he
recognises a great natural fact, then it is your duty to blame
the constitution of the world, and the arrangements of
nature, because you find that the reproductive instinct is
attended with pleasure in its due gratification. The notion
that pleasure qua pleasure is wrong is an ascetic notion,
which is at the base of a large amount of the profligacy of
the present day. You even find it stated, right through the
teaching of the Christian moralists, that Providence annexed
pleasure to the reproductive function in order to ensue the
perpetuation of the species. Take Jeremy Taylor. No one
will say that in his Living and Dying, he wrote a book in-
tentionally calculated to arouse sexual desires. You will
find he says that God appointed sexual pleasure in order to
ensure the reproduction of the species. It is not only by
those to whom the co-defendant and myself belong that this
fact is recognised. You find it in the bishops of the Church
of England and your great moralists. They say that it is
the special plan of Providence so that the species in the
animal and vegetable kingdom may be preserved. Mon-

taigne truly said, that it is only an impure mind which
sees impurity in the function which brings mankind into the
world. I put it to you that the pamphlet is specially
addressed to the married, and there is not one single syllable
in it that gives colour to the insinuation that the word mar-
riage " is used as a cover to unlawful desires. I now come to
the Philosophical Proem. I do not agree with it, but I say
there is not a single syllable which even the Solicitor-General
can twist into indecency, and I hold that in order to convict
on this indictment you must take the whole book to be ob-
scene.

The Lord Chief-Justice : I don't want to interrupt you,
but that is going too far.

Mrs. Besant: Is it putting it a little too strongly ?

The Lord Chief-Justice : You are wrong there. The
question is whether the book is obscene, not whether there
may be intermediary passages that are not obscene. You
must take it as a whole. They have charged the whole
book. The jury must look at the scope and effect of the
w^hole.

Mrs. Besant : I am much obliged to you, my lord. You
must read the whole of the publisher's preface, and judge of
that part which will tend to produce obscenity taken as a
whole. I will call your attention to a sentence in the Philo-
sophical Proem to show the tone of Dr. Knowlton. He
speaks of — ^'Passions acquired by habit — habitually hanker-
ing for stimulants, as spirits, opium, and tobacco, is one of
these." Dr. Knowlton, you will see, is not a man specially
given to physical or sensual indulgence. You will find that
on many points he is, what would be called by many people,
ascetic. In the third paragraph you will see: — "That
which gives rise to agreeable consciousness is good, and
we desire it. If we use it intemperately such use is bad,
but the thing itself is still good." How can the Solicitor-
General, then, pretend that intemperate passion is advised by
Knowlton? The only other passage in the philosophical
proem with which I need trouble you is the second para-
graph on page 3. We are told there, Man by nature is
endowed with the talent of devising means to remedy or
prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying
our appetites, and it is as much the duty of the physician to
inform mankind of the means of preventing the evils that
are liable to arise from gratifying the reproductive instinct
as it is to inform them how to keep clear of the gout or

dyspepsia." And I will put it to you that that is true.
The doctor cannot pick out one portion of the human frame
and say : I won't deal with that because, in so doing, I may
be branded as indecent. It is the physician's business to
deal with the whole man and woman, and so to deal with
them that he may warn them from what disease is likely to
arise, and what methods they may take in order to prevent
such arising, and you \vill find right through this that
Knowlton, writing as a scientific man to those whom he
desires to instruct, is really giving them such physiological
knowledge as will tend to the preservation of their health ;
and, more than that, you will find that duty thoroughly recog-
nised by other doctors as well as by Knowlton. Now, take
the case of Dr. Acton, where he is dealing with some of the
questions which are most objected to by the learned Solici-
tor-General. Knowlton also deals with them, and I take
leave to say that, after all, a doctor of medicine in America
may surely be permitted to deal with subjects that a doctor
of medicine in England is also allowed to deal with. You
find in dealing with Acton that he publishes a book treating
right through of the functions and disorders of the reproduc-
tive organs, a book which he does not intend to go amongst
medical men, but which he intends for more general cir-
culation, because he distinctly says he hopes it will exert
good influence on public health and public morals. You
will find Dr. Acton arguing : " I have been entreated over
and over again to urge on parents, guardians, schoolmasters,
and others interested in the education of youth, the necessity
of giving their charges some warning, or some intimation
of their danger." Dr. Acton, gentlemen, is dealing specially
with one of the intemperate practices to which Dr. Knowlton
alludes in some five lines, and which Dr. Acton gives a large
portion of his book to, and he is dealing there with the
question as to whether it is wise or not to publish details of
that kind, and . he publishes here details which Knowlton
does not, and you wall find, when my co-defendant comes
to deal with his book, that he clearly puts there that you
cannot possibly — especially with young men — avoid their
having knowledge regarding their own bodies, and that it is
better — especially so long as you allow them to read the
classics — that they should have some kind of what I may,
perhaps, call an antidote, in physiological knowledge, to that
thoroughly sensual set of ideas that they get in dealing with
the classical authors ; and he says : it is in this way that

men of my mode of thinking view the distinction between
he modern newspaper details and the prurient hterature
which has been generally known as Holywell Street. In
this last-named literary garbage, ilUcit pleasure was depicted
in all its most attractive and meretricious forms, but the
anonymous author, like the translators of the Greek and f
Latin lores of the heathen gods and goddesses omitted to
allude to the frightful consequences that iUicit love or bestial
propensities produce on all those who directly or indirectly '
indulge their animal propensities.'' That, Dr. Acton says, is "
the distinction between decency and indecency, and right
through this book you v/ill find the strongest language em-
ployed by Dr. Knowlton against such intemperate indub
gence as is bad for the health of those for whom he writes.
With that, I think, gentlemen, I may almost leave this philo-
sophical proem, although I had marked, to read to you, two
sentences that follow the one I have just read to you, putting
it that the reproductive instinct, being a physical need
like hunger or thirst, comes as much within the pro-
vince of the physician as any other part of the human
body, and I will put iiere what is matter of fact — as later,
I can show you from Mr. Darwin — that what Knowlton
says about health is shewn to be true by the fact that married
women live longer than unmarried women, and this is
a point you get right through every census table that you
can take up. You will find there that marriage has a
distinctly lengthening effect on human life ; you will find
that bachelorhood or spinsterhood distinctly shortens life ;
and it is only reasonable it should be so, gentlemen,
because those who despise the natural instincts of
nature can scarcely be surprised if nature revenges herself
by shortening the life which they do not know how to use.
That, then, I will put to you, that you find — especially
dealing with my own sex — that unmarried women (and if
any of you are doctors you will know it well) suffer from a
number of diseases, special to the reproductive organs, that
married women, as a rule, do not suffer from, because they
have not thv/arted nature in the fashion that those who lead
a celibate life must do. And I may say here, too, that Dr.
Knowlton remarks that ^'mankind will not so abstain;" as
a simple matter of fact, I must put it to you that men and
women, but more especially men, will not lead a celibate life,
whether they are married or unmarried, and that what you
have got to deal with is, that which we advocate — early mar-

riage with restraint upon the numbers of the family — or else
ti simple mass of unlicensed prostitution, which is the ruin
both of men and women when once they fall into it.
I will pass, gentlemen, from that, on to the first chapter of
Dr. Knowlton's essay. Dr. Knowlton wTites the first chapter
to show " how desirable it is, both in a political and social
point of view, for mankind to be able to limit at will the
number of their offspring, without sacrificing the pleasure
that attends the gratification of the reproductive instinct ; "
and I will put it broadly, that mankind will not sacrifice the
pleasure that attends the gratification of the reproductive
instinct, and that you have got to deal with things as they
are, and not w^ith things as they might be — if ascetics could
form the world better, as they think, than nature has already
formed it. It has been put that the pohtical economy of this
pamphlet is only a cover for an indecent object. If so, it
seems almost strange and suicidal on Dr. Knowlton's part
that he should speak so strongly against profligacy as
3'ou find him do in this first chapter. It is not usual for a
man who wants to induce young people to become profligate,
to carefully point out to them all the harm that will come
from their following his advice, and all the misery that will
attend them in after-life if they carry out liis suggestions. I
am incUned to think, taking the learned Solicitor-General's
point of view, that Dr. Knowlton, instead of being at-
tacked for writing an obscene pamphlet, ought almost to
have been shut up in a madhouse for taking the very
means that must utterly destroy the end which he pro-
posed to himself to attain. This chapter, then, which is
part of the incriminated book, deals with a serious
question of political economy, and I will draw your attention
now to the first paragraph, in a political point of view " —
If population be not restrained by some great physical
calamity, such as we have reason to hope will not hereafter
be visited upon the children of men, or by some vi07'al
7-estraint^ the time will come when the earth cannot sup-
port its inhabitants. Population, unrestrained, will double
three times in a century. Hence, computing the pre-
sent population of the earth at one thousand milHons,
there would be at the end of one hundred years from
the present time, 8,000 millions ; at the end of 200 years,
64,000 millions ; at the end of 300 years, 512,000 millions,
and so on, multiplying by eight for every additional hundred
years. So that, in 500 years from the present time, there

would be thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-
eight times as many inhabitants as there are at present. If
the natural increase should go on without check for 150a
years, one single pair would increase to more than thirty-
live thousand one hundred and eighty-four times as many
as the present population of the whole earth ! " I urge,
gentlemen, that this chapter cannot be separated from the
book when you are dealing with the intent of the book ;
that you have no right to presume an indecent intent unless
you have some amount of proof which shall show that the
intent is bad ; and I urge that the whole of the tone of
this first chapter directly negatives the contention which the
SoHcitor-General put forward to you in opening the case for
the prosecution. That contention of Knowlton is one that
is thoroughly and fully recognised by others ; and when you
are dealing with it, if you once allow my definition of this
fiirst chapter to stand, you cannot convict on the remainder
of the book ; because, if I can prove to you that you must
have some checks on population — that you have only got
the choice between the checks of vice and misery and the
scientific checks for which we plead — if I can prove that tO'
you, you cannot bring in a verdict of guilty against us. You
may say,'' physiological details are introduced f but you can-
not discuss the population question without introducing phy-
"^iological details. You may lay down the law, as Knowlton
iocs in his first chapter, without physiological details ; but
it is no good laying down the law if you don't apply the
law ; and you cannot apply the law until you make the
people acquainted with the simple mechanism of their own
bodies, as Dr. Knowlton does here 3 and I will put it that
there is nothing more hopeless to us than if the in-
crease of our knowledge is simply to point out to us the doom
which we are powerless to avert ; you had better have no
political economy at all, no science at all, if that science is
only to drive us to despair by giving us the knowledge of an
approaching misery, while you forbid us in any fashion to
discuss the means whereby we may avert it ; you can no
more discuss the population question without physiology
than you can solve an arithmetical problem without figures.
If you tried to do it you would utterly fail ; you might lay
down your law, but you could not apply it without the de-
tails. The economical law teaches the danger of over-pro-
duction ; nature teaches us that men and women will marry;
and the object of medical science is to teach us how the

law of political "economy, and the law of nature, may be i
shown so to dovetail into each other, that they may be
both obeyed by human beings without wrong or harm ,
being done to any one. The prosecution, when pressed j
specially — I may say pressed almost by the learned judge I
himself — picked out one or two extracts of the book which \
it characterised as specially obscene. Our duty is, then, to i
brmg forward the other parts of the book which show that ,
those parts of the book are simply necessary for the solving \
of the question in hand ; and as the intent is part of the
indictment, if I can show you that Knowlton's intent, and^ j
therefore, our intent, is a scientific intent, you will be I
bound to bring us in not guilty of the indictment against us.. '
That I think you will find to be so strongly decided in a '\
number of trials that I have put down here, that unless my I
course of dealing with it is objected to by the prosecution
I won't trouble you with the references I have made. On
the fourth page you find Knowlton putting forward : —
**Some check, then, there must be, or the time will i
come when millions will be born but to suffer and j
to perish for the necessaries of life. To what ^
an inconceivable amount of human misery would such ;
a state of things give rise ! And must we say that \
vice, war, pestilence, and famine, are desirable to pre-
vent it? Must the friends of temperance and domestic \
happiness stay their efforts ? Must peace societies excite to \
war and bloodshed ? Must the physician cease to investi- ^
gate the nature of contagion, and to search for the means of i
destroying its baneful influence ? Must he that becomes ]
diseased be marked as a victim to die for the public good, i
without the privilege of making an effort to restore him to j
health ? And, in case of a failure of crops in one part of j
the world, must the other part withhold the means of sup- :
porting life, that the far greater evil of excessive populatiort ;
throughout the globe may be prevented Gentlemen, that ^
is practically putting that law of population, which was laid !
down first, in the year 1798, by the Rev. T. R. Mai thus,
who was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and a professor
of history and political economy at the East India College, |
in Hertfordshire. Malthus wrote that the law of population,
which he then pressed on the people of his time, was that
"there was aconstant tendency in all animated life to increase \
beyond the nourishment prepared for it. It is observed by j
Dr. Franklin that there is no bound to the prolific nature of /

E 2 '

plants and animals but what is made by their crowding and
interfering with each other's means of subsistence " ; and he
goes on to say, " And it may safely be pronounced
that the population, when unchecked — and I lay
great stress on the ^'when unchecked," that you may
fmd out the terrible nature of those checks, against
which we are setting ourselves in this trial — " popu-
lation, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. The
rate according to which the production of the earth may be
supposed to increase will not be so easy to determine. Of
this, however, we may be perfectly sure, that the ratio ot
their increase in a limited territory must be of a totally
different nature from the ratio of increase in the population.
A thousand millions are just as easily doubled every twenty-
five years by the power of population as a thousand, but the
food to support the increase of the greater number will by
no means be obtained with the same facility. Man is con-
fined in room. When acre has been added to acre until
all the fertile land is occupied, the yearly increase of food
must depend on the amelioration of the land already in pos-
session." That is the way that Mr. Mai thus puts it, and I
may perhaps deal there with the figures he puts because
he puts it so clearly that I think that by reading this I
shall give you the whole gist of Malthus's Law of
Population." "Let us call," he says, "the popula-
tion of this island eleven millions. Suppose the present
produce equal to the easy support of such a number
(and I may remind you, in passing, that the popu-
lation which Malthus speaks of as eleven millions — which
w^as then nearer ten millions — has since then gone up to
something like twenty-three millions, while, as you know
from the price of food, food has not multiplied itself with
the rapidity which population has done), " in the first
twenty-five years," he says, " the population will be twenty-
two millions, and the food being also doubled, the means
of subsistence would be equal to the increase. In the next
twenty-five years the population would be forty-four millions,
and the means of subsistence only equal to the means of
twenty-three millions."

The Lord Chief Justice : He hardly makes any allow-
ance for deaths. He gives the actual increase, and not the
ratio ?

Mrs. Besant : He deals with that further on, and I shall

show, in a few moments, the checks that keep it down. Mr,
Malthus does make allowance for what should be the ordi-
nary death-rate, and be points out the misery that results
from war and starvation, which are the checks that are acting
to-day ; and that is the justification, my lord, for our
pamphlet.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not know how long your lordship
will sit. At this stage Mrs. Besant is about half-way through
the matter which she has to bring before your lordship. I
have been following it on the brief.

The Lord Chief Justice : We must go on, I think, for
another half-hour, unless Mrs. Besant feels exhausted.

Mrs. Besant : Oh, no ; I can go on.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then I think we must take
another half-hour.

Mrs. Besant : The reason why I am bringing this
forward, gentlemen, is that I shall have to show you — as I can
show you, and I shall bring some figures to-morrow morning
to show you and the learned judge — that the population
does double itself in 25 years, in countries where food is
sufficient to support it. That, gentlemen, is really the
justification of our pamphlet ; for we believe that the present
checks that keep population down are the misery and
starvation that result from over-crowding, and we want to
substitute scientific checks for those. I Vvas quoting from
Malthus, where he was pointing out the rate of subsistence
that is natural to the human kind ; you find in the ^' second
25 years the population gets to 44 millions, and the means
of subsistence to only 33 millions. In the next period the
population is 88 millions, and the means of subsistence just
equal to half At the conclusion of the first century, the
population would be 176 millions, and the means of sub-
sistence only equal to the support of 55 miUions, leaving a
population of 1 2 1 millions totally unprovided for ; and then
he goes on to point out that the human species wouP" ,
increase, with a sufficiency of food, in the ratio of th >
numbers i, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on.

The Lord Chief Justice : In other words, geometric-
ally.

Mrs. Besant : Yes ; in the geometrical ratio, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : Whereas the food increased
in arithmetical proportion.

Mrs. Besant : That is just how he puts it; I was putting
it in figures, lest the technical terms should not so well

■convey the idea. Then that is Malthus' "Law of Population,"
published by him, as I put to you, in 1798. Since that
time, gentlemen, a very large number of books have been
written, all bearing on this subject, and, almost without
exception, the books of the leading political economists
follow the theory propounded and laid down by Mr. Malthus.
You may remember that Miss Martineau said that it would
Le as absurd to try to upset the law of population as to
upset the law of arithmetic. That is putting it very plainly.
But it just shows you the view that thinkers take on the
subject. I do not mean to give all the quotations I might
to back up Malthus, or many except on special points, but
I may say that both John Stuart Mill and his father. Pro-
fessor Cairnes, Professor Fawcett, Mrs. Fawcett, Professor
Bain, and many others, whose works, at the present time,
are the text-books for the instruction of young men at the
Universities of Oxford and of Cambridge, as well as at other
universities, that all those do agree, without exception, in the
law laid down by Malthus ; that they all, without exception,
acknowledge his division as to positive and preventive
checks, which I shall have to deal with to-morrow,
and all, without exception, do say that unless you
can find some way of limiting the population of the
world by preventive checks, you must be content to
remain with those old barbarous means, which the
Solicitor-General said were the provisions made by God
and nature for our benefit : those provisions are — war,
famine, disease, misery, starvation, overcrowding, preventible
disease, infanticide, baby-farming, and all other horrors
of our civilization : those are the means which the Solicitor-
General says God and providence give us in order to prevent
the over-increase of our population. Gentlemen, when the
Solicitor-General said that, I remembered the same expression
being used, now almost one hundred years ago, when, in the
House of Lords, it was ventured to be put forward that the
use of the Red Indians to scalp our American brethren was
a means that God and nature had put intoour hands to crush
the powers of rebellion, and I remembered the fiery indigna-
tion of Lord Chatham, who, whatever may have been his faults,
at least remembered England's honour in dealing with this
point, and he said — " God and nature ! I have yet to learn,
my lords, that these sacred names are to be employed in
fashion such as that !" and when I heard the SoHcitor-
General, when telling you of nature and providence, as

lie put it, when he spoke of the miseries I have seen in
•our cities as one of the means God and nature have employed
to destroy children brought into the world, children often
born from drunken parents, in misery, in wretchedness and
filth, which, gentlemen, your circumstances have happily
removed you from; when I heard those things put down
as a provision of God and nature, I trusted that, at least
v>'ith you, terms used in cant fashion such as ihat
would not have more influence than when used in that
other fashion in the House of Lords in the last century.
That, you will And is the law, and now what is the applica-
tion which the learned judge suggested when I was speak-
ing? Twenty-five years was the time within v/hich Mr.
Malthus said population doubled itself unless checked by
■.misery, and war, and starvation. Refer, gentlemen, to the
Northern States of America, and you find there, as a matter
■of fact, put forward here by Mr. Malthus and since then
endorsed in America by Professor Draper — whose works are
probably famihar to all of you — that in the Northern States of
America, ^' where the means of subsistence have been more
ample, the manners of the people more pure, and the checks
to early marriages fewer than in any of the other modern States
■of America and Europe, the population has been found to
>double itself, within the last century and a half, in less than
twenty-flve years.'' That was written in 1798; during the
time that has passed since then, you will find, gentlemen,
if you consult the census returns of the United States, that
the population has doubled itself in every twenty-five years,
,and in some of the States — if I may take the evidence of
Professor Draper as thoroughly reliable on that point — in
some of the States, he says, it has doubled itself in twelve
years, instead of in fifty.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is that including the results
of emigration ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : That is excluding the emigi-ation
returns.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is that so ?
Mr. Bradlaugh : Yes.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is very astonishing !

Mr. Bradlaugh ; It is very astonishing, but it is the
result, after carefully excluding the emigration returns.

Mrs. Besant : One may w^eary you with it, my lord, but so
many of these things are not known generally, that you will
pardon me if I put them to the jury, so that they may

see how we, who have studied this matter, put the question^
and why we think it so vital a question, when dealing with it
before you. The population does not increase, as my lord fairly
pointed out, at this rate in this and other countries. Why not ?

Population,^' says Malthus, " is necessarily limited by the
means of subsistence. Population invariably increases where
the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some
very powerful and obvious checks. These checks, and the
checks which repress the superior power of population, and
keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are
all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery.'^
I shall put it to you, gentlemen, that you must have some
checks, that the only choice you have got is, not whether
there shall be checks, but what the checks shall be. You
have got that choice, if you agree with the Solicitor-Gen-
eral. You may think the means of nature (for 1 won't bring
the other name into a contention such as this) — you may think
the means of nature are those you prefer, and then I put it
to you, if so, that you go back to the old savage times where
you get those checks in their full swing. You do get them
there, gentlemen. If you want to go back, you must decide
for these checks. I will now lay before you the division of
checks made by Malthus, and it is with that division, I almost
think (with my lord's permission), that I shall finish my speech
of this afternoon, simply because, my lord, it makes a clear-
division of sense which it will be valuable to me to keep.

Those checks are divided into what are called " positive
checks, and what are called " preventive " checks. Positive
checks for a moment I will call natural " checks, following
out the line of thought which the learned Solicitor-General
kindly draws formyguidance,but theyare^^ natural" only in the
sense of being general throughout Nature ; that is to say, it is.
the death-producing check which is the positive check, the
check that produces death. You find it in the vegetable
kingdom ; you find it in the animal kingdom ; the trees-
produce a number of seeds more than can ever grow
into plants, animals produce far more young than ever
can grow into maturity. If any of you have taken an
interest in natural history, you will have seen there (and
even without that you must know it from the common every-
day matters of life), that the death producing check is the
one check that acts throughout nature of all the young
brought into the world, not one tithe survives to grow up
into maturity ; but that check is only a natural check in the

sense that nature is opposed to art, to science, or to men's
reason. It is only natural, ^vhen you exclude man from
nature and treat nature as simply brutal animal instincts
and passions, and nothing more. The moment you admit
man's reason into nature, that death-producing check is no
longer a natural check, because man's reason is given him by
nature, in order that by being thrown into the mass of a
number of mute laws he may learn to balance law against
law, and in doing that may use his reason to bring him out
of the terrible crushing wheel of nature, that breaks down the
lower organisms that have not our brain. I plead for pre-
ventive check. Preventive check means that man's brain is
used — preventive check means birth-restricting check as od-
posed to death-producing check ; and I hold, in the words of
our preface, gentlemen, that it is more moral to prevent the
birth of children than it is after they are born to murder them
as you do to-day by want of food, and air, and clothing, and
sustenance. Gentlemen, I call it a birth-restricting check — an
artificial check if 3^ou will, because all comfort and all civiliza-
tion are artificial. It is the natural way, as the Solicitor-General
put it (although not delicately, perhaps), for a man to go about
naked ; though that is not respectable, that is the natural
way of doing things. We, however, prefer the artificial fashion,,
which has the decency of clothing, instead of that which the
Solicitor-General put, and I plead for what is called the
artificial check — the preventive check ; and I say that man's-
reason is given him by nature in order that he may, by his
reason and by his intellect, prevent that suffering which
results from the laws of nature, if you take nature with-
out man. That, gentlemen, is what I shall plead for to-morrow.
I have brought you down now partly through our pamphlet^
with our reasons for doing it. I have put to you as plainly
as I can the meaning of the word obscene, which will govern
your verdict ; I have pleaded that our intent is good, and
that the purpose at which we aim is good, because it con-
duces to human and to social happiness. I ha\ e shown you
from Malthus — and he has never yet been disproved — >
what the law of population is. I have shown that some
checks must prevail, either positive or preventive, and
to-morrow I will deal with these,

SECOND DAY.

The Court sat again, exactly at 10.30, and on taking his seat
the Lord Chief-Justice intimated that he had received a
letter from a gentleman who did not append his signature,
complaining of the want of ventilation in the court, and
requesting that more windows might be opened. He should
certainly most willingly have granted the request, only that
there were no more windows to open.

Mrs. Besant, resuming her address, said : My lord, gentle-
men of the jury : You will remember that when the Court
rose, yesterday afternoon, I had just brought my argument
down to the necessary checks on population which, follovvdng
the rule laid down by Malthus, I had divided into two
classes — one class being those positive, which I characterised
as death-producing checks, which the learned Solicitor-Gene-
ral named as being that with which Nature and Providence
had interposed, and the other those preventive, prudential,
or birth-restricting checks, of which I am here the advocate.
I propose, this morning, to take up my argument exactly
where I laid it down, for it is very important for me in this
trial that I should build up, step by step, the arguments
which I desire to lay before you, and by which I hope to
overthrow the contention of the learned Solicitor-General,
that the whole of the philosophy of this book is only a cloak
put to cover the body of a vicious and demoralising intent.
I laid the foundation of the argument yesterday, and I shall
proceed to take it step by step to-day, and while I shall do
my best to compress my arguments so far as I can, I am
■quite sure that I may ask from your sense of justice, and
from your patience, the full consideration which will be
necessary, if I am to put before you the contention which I
raise. I feel slightly encouraged to-day, in trespassing on your
time, from the fact that even this morning we have had the
pleasure of receiving a letter from Professor Bain, a man
who will be known to all of you, a man' who is known where-
ever thought has spread, in which he says, that he regards
this trial " as one of the most critical trials in the history of
our liberties." If that be true, or if it is possible that it can

be true, you will not think I am unduly trespassing on your
time if I leave no argument untouched which may avail to
move you at a crisis so important. It is the positive checks
with which I have to deal first. Malthus puts it that
the ultimate check on population appears to be " want
of food arising necessarily from the different ratios according
to which population and food increase." You will remember
that the learned judge pointed out that population increased
in a geometrical ratio, while the means of supporting the
population only increased in an arithmetical ratio. The
immediate check/^ says Malthus, may be said to consist in
all those customs and all those diseases which seem to be
generated by a scarcity of the means of subsistence, and all
those causes independent of this scarcity, whether of a moral
or a physical nature, which tend prematurely to weaken and
to destroy the human race." These are the checks of which,
for the purpose of his argument, the learned Solicitor-General
thought it right to speak in words of praise. These checks
are found to apply most rigorously in savage nations, the
tendency of civilisation being, instead of leaving the rough
natural checks and other injuries to operate, to bring the
means of neutralising the effect of natural laws. It is
to savage nations, then, that we first turn. You get as
a check on population, war, that in savage nations mows
down so many of the strongest of the tribe, and, by destroy-
ing men in the prime of their life, acts, to a very great
and wide extent, as a check on population. You get also
the hardship of the daily life killing off the sickly and the
young — a check that Malthus characterises in the very
strongest terms, pointing out, as he goes through his great
work, that, amongst some savage nations, a large proportion
of children die because their baby frames are unable to
support the hardships of their life. You have the difficulty
ofsubsistenceandof getting food, on which Darwin lays special
stress as being a universal check ; in his great work on the
^' Origin of Species," p. 6 1, he remarks that "of the many indivi-
duals of any species which are periodically born, but a small
number can survive," and on p. 63, he says : A struggle
for existence inevitably follows, from the high rate at which
all organic beings tend to increase. Every living being
which, during its natural lifetime, produces eggs or seeds,
must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and
during some season or occasional year ; otherwise, on the
principle of geometrical "increase, its numbers would quickly

become so inordinately great that no country could support
the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than
can possibly survive, there must, in every case, be a struggle
for existence, either one individual Vvith another of the same
species, or with individuals of distinct species, or with the
physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus
applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vege-
table kingdoms, for in this case there can be no artificial

increase of food, no prudential restraint from marriage

There is no exception to the rule, and every organic being
naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed,
the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single
pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five
years, and, at this rate, in a few thousand years, there would
literally not be standing room for his progeny." He further
goes on to point out that people do not recognise this fact
as thoroughly as they ought to do, owing to the fact that
among the larger domestic animals we see no great destruc-
tion falling on them, and we forget that thousands are
annually slaughtered for food, and that in a state of nature
an equal number would have somehow to be disposed of
You get another check on population, operating in savage
nations, and I shall have to put it to you as largely prevail-
ing amongst ourselves. Amongst savage nations you get
infanticide openly practised to a large extent. In the ruder
tribes of America it is practised by many mothers, who do
not wish to burden themselves by rearing more than two out
of their offspring. If a mother endeavours to rear the whole
of her children, a large proportion inevitably perishes under
the rigorous treatment which must be their lot in a savage
state, where, probably, none of those who laboured under
any original weakness or infirmity could possibly attain the
age of manhood. If they do not get cut off as soon as they
are born they cannot long preserve their lives under the severe
discipline that awaits them. You get another check in the
murder of the aged, for the moment they cease to become
productive, and can no longer make food for the tribe, their
lives are put an end to. You get the whole, thing well
summed up in Malthus, who urges that all the checks
you find in the savage state may be summed up in
misery. He speaks of " the frequent wars of these
savages with different tribes and their perpetual contests
with each other ; their strange spirit of retaliation and
revenge, which prompts the midnight murder and

the frequent shedding of innocent blood ; the smoke
and filth of their miserable habitations, and their poor mode
of living, productive of loathsome cutaneous disorders ; and,
above all, a dreadful epidemic like the small-pox, which
sweeps off great numbers " (p. 17). It is thus that Malthus
sums up those checks on the increase of mankind which
prevail amongst savage nations, and what I want you to bear
in mind, gentlemen, if you will kindly do so right through,
is that we have got to deal with phases of these checks
amongst ourselves, and it is to you that the poor of this
country are now looking, hoping that you will say that, in-
iitead of these checks that mean misery and vice, you will
give them the chance of a scientific check, which means
happiness and comfort for the home. Looking through
history, all the great periodical famines that kept down the
European population may be traced back to this same
species of check. All the great incursions of the Northmen
and of the Goths were simply produced by the want of the
means of subsistence, and, overcrowded in their own land,
these strong and vigorous races they overflowed into
more fertile lands that they might find them there. These
are the only answers that savage nations have found to
the great population question — simply starvation, war,
famine, and disease ; these are the checks which have
prevented savage nations from increasing as rapidly as
they would have done otherwise. Now, we come to a
slightly more advanced state of civilisation, and since I
do not want to follow Malthus in his great work from
country to country, because to do that would make
my speech last nearer a week than the day to which
I hope to confine it, I will take one single instance,
that of China, which may be considered as a repre-
sentative country, where the population difficulty is
bringing now tremendous -social and political difffculties
that have already touched America, and have touched our
own colonies in Australia, and that may touch England as
well, unless we can find some better solution than is at
present afforded. China, as you know, is a country that
may almost be said for thousands of years to have been
growing into such an instance as I want to lay before you.
They were against emigration^ were shut up within their
own circle, and, in addition to that, their creed gave them
special encouragement to marry, to marry at a very early
age, and to bring into the world as many human beings as

possible. AVe find in the "Statesman's Year Book" that
the population of China in the year 1877 is reckoned at
405^213,134.

The Lord Chief Justice: For what year?

Mrs. Besant : The present year, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is it the present population ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : It is an estimate ; hardly an official
census.

The Lord Chief Justice : It refers to the present
population ?

Mrs. Besant : It does ; and it is taken upon estimates
based upon the Chinese official returns. The " Statesman's
Year Book " goes on to point out that the above population^
giving 263 souls per square mile, appears to be excessive,
considering that some of the outlying portions are by no
means densely inhabited. It goes on to say that the census
taken in 1842, which would be rather before the enormous
amount of emigration, showed a population of 419 millions,
and in 1852 it was 450 millions, that increase being enor-
mously rapid, while it has, during the last few years, beea
somewhat checked by the very large emigration which has
had most lamentable results. The result in China, as laid
down by Malthus, has been most unfortunate, for he points
out that, " notwithstanding the great sobriety and industry
of the inhabitants of China, the prodigious number of
them occasions a great deal of misery. There are some
so poor that being unable to supply their children with
common necessaries they expose them in the streets," and
that, gentlemen, is a resource which you know is unfortu-
nately not confined to the inhabitants of countries like
China. We are told that the country, ^' extensive and fertile
as it is, is not sufficient to support its inhabitants," and
that four times as much territory would be necessary to
place them at their ease," and he points out that that wretched-
ness has been the consequence of the over rapid increase.
You get in China, as another result of this i)opulation
question, an enormous amount of infanticide, chiefly amongst
female children — because the males being more productive
the female children are those who suffer most — and you find,
as a consequence of this, that terrible prevalence of unnatural
crimes right through China, — crimes so shocking in their cha-
racter that I will not even mention them in this Court. You
find in America, where these Chinese have spread, carrying
with them those unnatural crimes which always result from

a thwarting of nature — you find in America continual com-
plaints of the Chinese servants, who are beginning to over-
run the land, so that it is impossible to put children into^
the care of Chinese men because of the terrible habits
that they have brought with them from their over-populated
county. The very reason of our last war in China recalls
us to another branch of the great question that wo are
discussing to day. We went to war on the question of the
opium traffic. Opium is simply taken there in order to buy
escape from the terrible sexual difficulty which arises from the
fact that the number of men far exceeds the number of
women in that unfortunate land ; for taking opium does at
first give rise to some of the feelings which should be only
naturally aroused, and then later it entirely destroys the
sexual instinct ; that is one of the answers that China has
given to this question in her utter ignorance. In Australia,
our government there sent home to complain that the pro-
portion of women amongst the immigrant Chinese
was utterly inadequate to sexual needs, for only four or
or five women went over, amongst literally cart-loads
of men. Sixteen women, my co-defendant tells me,
to some 15,000 men, was the proportion that one table
shewed, as having emigrated from China. Your experience
is sufficient to tell you the terrible amount of crime and
disease to which such a state of things must necessarily
give rise. Leaving then that part of the question, because
your own reading must have made you familiar with so
many of these questions that I need not trouble you more with
them here — I will come to those checks on population in
Europe, which, as my lord pointed out, seemed to neutral-
ise, to some extent, the conclusions of Malthus. You
find, in Europe, that these positive checks have been so
extremely marked, so curiously and strongly marked, that
right through the 1000 years that are taken as the Middle
Ages, the population of Europe had not even doubled.
During the whole of that long period "some tremendous
checks must then have been in operation in order to
keep down the natural fertility of the human species.
Later, the increase has been very rapid, and it is only rea-
sonable, therefore, to try to find out what has caused the
change between the stationary state of things for 1000
years, and later, the very rapid increase. The rapid
increase has simply been due, generally, to the fact that
civilization has removed many of those checks which, in

the more barbarous time of the Middle Ages kept down
the population of this Continent. Now, instead of the
sickly being left to die without treatment, they are cured
by the advance of sanitary science, and we now take more
care to prevent disease, as well as possess more skill in
curing it. These are the reasons why you find the popula-
tion to-day increasing so rapidly, and it becomes a practical
question for us to grapple with the ever-growing danger.
And not only is it the tendency of civilisation to reduce all
those checks that are called death-producing checks or posi-
tive checks by Malthus, but you have the tendency to reduce
these ever more and more rapidly. War is beginning, although
very slowly, to be replaced by arbitration, and although that
has not yet been thoroughly carried out, we may hope that,
as nations become wiser and more civilised, we shall have
fewer wars and more frequent resorts to arbitration and to
legal and reasonable remedies. One may hope also that we
shall be able to cure disease more extensively the more
doctors discover of the secrets of nature; and as many diseases
•are preventible, we may look forward to the time when the re-
turns of the Registrar-General will showmore deaths from old
age than from any other cause. You thus come to the point
put by Knowlton on page 4, that some check there must
be, or the time will come when millions will be born but to
suffer and to perish for want of the necessaries of life.'' The
advantages of civilisation are to some extent neutralised by
the terrible idea that the more civilised we become the
more we remove the natural checks, and, therefore, the more
quickly approaches the period of actual general privation;
the sick, instead of being left to die, are cured by medical
skill ; hospitals are built, wherein they are sheltered, and
not only is it that the sickly do not die, but they survive
and marry, and so pass on the inheritance of their own
feebleness to the children who proceed from such marriages.
The aged in the Middle Ages died far more rapidly than
they do now; now their life is lengthened by the care,
nourishment, and comfort which they enjoy. Then, such
plagues as that which visited Florence, and the great plague
of London, in the reign of Charles the Second, have now
become almost impossible, owing to our improved sanitary
arrangements. Since these checks are now so much di-
minished by science, it is necessary to bring in some scientific
checks to take their place. Nature, left to herself, balances
herself; but if we interfere with nature by curing the sickly

whom she is Iiilling, and preserving the life which she has
doomed, it becomes necessary to substitute scientific for
natural checks — for you must not interfere on one side with-
out interfering on the other ; the increase of science other-
wise means only the increase of human misery. It may be
said that the result is a long way off, and that it is not worth
while to trouble ourselves with what will only affect the
century that follows us. Is this so ? You find that a gentle-
man called Mr. Montague Cookson, who is well know^n in
this court, and who would not be inclined to frighten
people for the purpose of causing an effect, says, in an
article which appeared in the Fortnightly Revieiu of October,
1S72 : " But, without being extravagant, we may, nay must,
go further. If there were no counteracting causes, sooner
or later the time would come when this little island would
be overstocked to such a degree that the great bulk of the
inhabitants would be unable to procure the bare necessaries
of life, and ultimately this would be the case, not only in
England, but in all the countries of the globe. However
unpalatable the truth, it is useless to disguise the fact that
the sources of food are limited, whereas, but for war
and disease, which many people " — (Mr. Cookson says,
here anticipating the Solicitor-General) — " openly treat as
special interferences in man's favour, the augmentation of
human beings w^ould be unlimited. Emigration somewhat
interposes ; but emigration is only effectual so far as it
aids equal distribution, and is, therefore, but a temporary
method of dealing with the difficulty which will have to be
disposed of at no distant day, on a more gigantic scale. '
That is the argument put forward by Mr. Cookson in an
article in which he is dealing with the very subject under dis-
cussion here. It is entitled " The Morality of Married
Life," and I shall refer to it several times, in order to show
that if you give a verdict of guilty against us you must re-
member that you are not only branding us but half of the
leading writers in England, every one of whom has substan-
tially taken our side on this great question. What, then,
are the checks in England? In 1821 the population of
England was 12,000,236, and you find that fifty years later
— in 187 1 — it was 22,712,266. When you think, gentlemen,
how, during that time, the cost of food and living has risen,
I think you will say with me that this population question
is not a question for the future, for if we have nearly doubled
our numbers in fifty years, in spite of those lamentable checks

to which m a moment I shall have to draw your attention,
what will be the rate of increase during the next fifty
years — the time that our children will have this country — •
unless some greater thought can be brought to bear
upon it ? You know from your own experience how
rapidly food is rising at the present day. During
the last ten or twelve years, those things which are
regarded as most necessary to human life have in-
; creased in the most rapid proportion. Bread, meat,
and milk, all most necessary things for men, w^omen, and
children, have gone up in price. These are things known
to every housekeeper — and this is a point where a woman
may speak with almost more knowledge than a man would
be expected to possess, seeing that though men have to pay
the bills, generally the women have to buy the necessaries, —
and, therefore, the question is a personal one to ourselves.
I find that Professor Fawcett, in his essay on " Pauperism,
its Causes and Remedies," published by Macmillan and Co.
in 187 1 — I may say, my lord, that we are prepared to prove
the publication of every book we use in this way — Professor
Fawcett puts it very strongly and clearly. He says that the

population of England and Wales in 18 10 was about
10,000,000, and 50 years later, in i860, it had grown to
20,000,000. At the present time it is growing at the rate of
200,000 every year, which is almost equivalent to the popu-
lation of the county of Northampton. If in 50 years the
descendants of one million become two millions, it is obvious
that in 100 years the two millions wall have become four
millions, so that if the population of England were eight
millions in 18 10 it would be 80 millions in i960." So he
goes on to point out that if 22,500,000 now find it difficult
to obtain sufficient food, what would it be if there were
40 millions to be maintained ! This will be our popu-
lation in 40 years if the rate of increase which has pre-
vailed since the beginning of the century continues.

At the present time it is said that there is a great redun-
dancy of labour. Many who are willing to w^ork cannot find
employment ; in most of our important branches of industry
there has been great over-production ; every trade and every
profession is over-crowded ; for every vacant clerkship there
are hundreds of applications. Difficult as it is for men to
obtain a livelihood, it is ten times more difficult for w^omen
to do so ; partly on account of unjust laws, and partly
because of the tyranny of society, they are shut out from

-many employments. All that has just been stated is admitted \
by common consent — it is the topic of daily conversation, ;
.and of daily complaint— and yet with the utmost com- ;
placency we observe 200,000 added to our population every
year, and we often congratulate ourselves upon this addition
to our numbers, as if it were an unerring sign of advancing ' \
prosperity. But viewed in relation to the facts just men- '
tioned, what does this addition to our numbers indicate ?
To this question only one reply can be given — that in ten ]
years' time, where there are a hundred now seeking employ-
ment, there will then be a hundred and twenty. This will not ,
^apply simply to one industry, but will be the case throughout ■
the whole country. It will also further happen that in ten ;
years' time, for every hundred who now require food, fuel, ;
and clothing, a similar provision will have to be made for
-a hundred and twenty. It therefore follows that, low as the ;
general average standard of living now is, it cannot by any
means be maintained, unless in ten years' time the supply of
all the commodities of ordinary consumption can be increased
by 20 per cent., without their becoming more costly." !
Gentlemen, if I may trouble you to look at it from that '
point of view, you will understand how grave is the feeling ;
with which we argue for this pamphlet — not because we ■
want this pamphlet carried on — not because we attach '
special value to this one pamphlet — but because a verdict ,i
of guilty against this pamphlet means that it will not be safe :
for medical men, or for political economists, to discuss
the question of population at all ; and we feel that unless ^
the question of population may be discussed, 3'ou will come, j
in ten or twenty years, to an amount of suxTering of v/hich j
^ve can scarcely realise the extent. Professor Fawceti quotes
Ireland as showing the effect of overcrowding on population ;
— and when we are dealing with Ireland you must admit that !
you are dealing with a land at our very doors, and in whose
prosperity we are deeply interested. Professor Fawcett says, ,
" Ireland should serve to warn us of the terrible misfortunes
brought upon a country by an undue increase of population. i
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the population .;
■of that country was about two millions : maintaining for the ^
next 150 years a smaller rate of increase than is now going ]
on in England, the two miUions had grown into eight miUions '
in the year 1847. The country, at this time, became so
densely peopled that a considerable portion of the nation j
could only obtain the barest subsistence ; still, nothing was j

F 2 '

done to avert the suffering that was certain to ensue ; the
people went on marrying with as much recklessness as if they
were the first settlers in a new country possessing a bound-
less area of fertile land. All the influence that could be
exerted by religion prompted the continuance of habits of
utter improvidence ; the priests and other ministers of reli-
gion encouraged early marriages. At length there came one
of those unpropitious seasons which are certain occasionally to
recur : the potato, the staple food of the people, was diseased,
and it was soon found that there were more people in the coun-
try than could be fed." And then he comes to a description
of the terrible Irish famine, which was only really put an end
to by the enormous emigration from Ireland which carried off
the surplus population. I put this to you : what is there to
prevent that happening in England which has happened in
Ireland? We are following the Irish plan, we are increasing
the population with more rapidity than we are increasing
the food supply. What right have we to think that we shall
escape the terrible sufferings of Ireland, if we go on ignor-
ing with Irish recklessness questions like that for which I
am pleading to-day? But the justification of this pamphlet
lies in the checks that are operating round us on every side.
I have put it to you that there must be some checks in
operation, because we are not increasing at the natural rate.
Malthus puts it that every check on population may be put
down as referable either to moral restraint, to misery, or to
vice. Moral restraint being unfashionable in this country^
and it being dangerous to venture to treat the subject at all,,
as my presence here to-day shows you, we are driven back to
accept those checks of poverty and vice which Malthus
,says are the only checks except moral restraint that can be
brought to bear. The justification of this pamphlet is, there-
fore, the nature of the checks that are operating on every
side. First, I shall put the overcrowding in towns which
you, gentlemen, from your happier circumstances, may not
have seen much of, but which I, who have gone much
among the poor, know from personal experience. When
the time comes to bring evidence before the Court,
I shall call one or two clergymen of the Church of
England, who will bear witness to the terrible nature of
the evils against which we speak. The Rev. Mr. Horsley,
late of St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and now chaplain of the
House of Detention at Clerkenwell, will tell you that I
am not in any way exaggerating the extent of this

check, and he will speak from his own personal knov.'-
ledge. I also propose to call the Rev. Stewart Headlani,
now of the parish of Bethnal Green, who from his own
knowledge and experience will tell you the nature of these
checks on population. He will also give you some idea of
the extent to which it has a terribly demoralising effect on
the young of both sexes, who are necessarily subject to it.
Personal witnesses will perhaps be more effective than
any books I could read. When you are dealing with a
scientific subject, it has ahvays been ruled that scientific
evidence may be adduced, not as giving an opinion on
the special subject at issue, but simply as a doctor may
bear witness to a certain fact as having come within his
•own personal knowledge. In the proceedings of the
National Association for the Promotion of Social Science,
there is an essay read by George Godwin, F.R.S., pressing
this question of population very strongly. He states that
he himself traced it out in one of the poorest districts of the
metropolis. Mr. Godwin says : " Evidences of overcrowding
turn up from time to time where they are not looked for.
It was but the other day that a child was found dead in
Brownlow Street, and, on inquiry, it was learnt that the
'mother, a widow, and six children slept in one bed in a small
room. The death of the child was attributed to the bed
clothes. In such an atmosphere as a room so occupied must
have, the vital power necessarily becomes weak, and to kill
is easy. In a house of respectable appearance outside I
found a hole under the stairs made the sleeping place for
three persons, tv/enty-one, seventeen, and fourteen years of
age. It was intended onginally for the reception of coals ;
it is not more than four feet deep, and the height, of course,
diminishes to nothing, as the steps descend. When the door
is closed there are only seven small gimlet holes in the stairs
for ventilation. Is it surprising that fevers break out under
such circumstances ? One is struck, sometimes, with the
strange contrivances resorted to to meet the difficulty of want
of room. Thus, in a model lodging-house for families, a
father, who with his wife and one child occupies one room,
has accom.modated six of his nine other children cross-
way on two camp bedsteads, while three elder girls,
one sixteen years old, sleep on a small bedstead
near. The room is well ventilated and clean, but the same
sort of sto\ving away is to be found in hundreds of cases,
under circumstances which render it deadly. In another

room in the same building, a wooden shelf has beeiii
contrived, which can be pushed under the bed during,
the day, and drawn out at night to accommodate a pile
of children. In a respectable house, not far from the-
last, occupied by steady artisans and others, I found that
nine persons slept in one of the rooms (12 feet by
14 feet) — a father, mother and seven children; eleven
shoemakers worked in the attics ; and in each of the
other five rooms there was a separate family. I could
quote scores of cases of overcrowding, in what would,
seem to be decent houses, but the repetition might tire.
No words, even aided by the pencil, can give a full idea,
of some of the dens which are occupied by a lower and
different class ; many born to evil and without the pov/er
to rise ; others the victims of more recent misfortunes or
their own conduct. The world has still an interest ia
improving their condition : children, as yet innocent, cry
aloud to be rescued from the otherwise inevitable gulf.
In some places, in the eastern districts, quite recently
visited, I have found ten, eleven, and in more cases than
one, fourteen persons occupying a single room." These
are some of the facts which being known to my co-
defendant and myself have made us feel it a duty which
no personal considerations can make us shrink from,,
to publish for sixpence that information which might be-
utilized to prevent continuance of su»3h misery — information
which wealthier women can obtain in higher-priced publica-
tions. When it comes to a question of immorality, you get
far more immorality by crowding five or six boys and girls
together than you can get from giving them dry physiological
knowledge, such as is given in the pages of Knowlton. Mr.
Godwin gives a number of cases, of which I take one more,
the description of a house in Bemerton Street, Caledonian
Road : The basement belovs^ the level of the street con-
tains, in the front room, an old man and his wife ; in the
back room, two lodgers ; in the parlours, there are a man
and his wife and eight children ; on the first floor a man and
his wife and infant, two girls 16 and 18 years of age, and
occasionally their mother, all in the front room ; and in the
small back room, two women, a girl, and two young children.
On the second floor, a father, mother, two young grown-up
sons, an infant, and a brood of rabbits. Two women and
two boys in the back room make the whole population of the:
house thirty- four. In the next house there were thirty-three

persons similarly divided." These are things which will be
explanatory to many of you gentlemen, who may wonder
what motive we could have for bringing forward such a
question as this, for it will show you how the overgrowth
of population affects the poor. Dr. Lankester, who, as
coroner for Middlesex, is surely some authority, says that,
In the parish of St. James, which is not one of the
poorest districts in the metropolis, there are 10,000 persons
who, for the sake of their health, ought to be removed
from the parish." That is not the amount of the whole
population, but the amount of the surplus population, whom
Dr. Lankester states should be removed from the parish if
that parish is to be put into a healthy condition. You fmd
him urging that over and over again. At a vestry meeting of
Marylebone, Dr. Bach, medical officer, said the horrible state
of some of the places could scarcely be described } human
beings were there living in such a state of squalid misery
that a horse that was kept in the worst possible stable was
better provided for. There were 19 houses in which
were 89 families, comprising 300 persons. There was one
room eight feet square, with a small opening for a window,
but no glass, and a man, his wife, and five children lived in
it, and there had been seven children." I find that Mr.
W. Rendle, who is thoroughly acquainted with this subject,
when speaking to an audience of doctors at a meeting of
the British Association, said that, though there was this
overcrowding in the face of a steadily-increasing population,
no real attempts were being made, to any appreciable ex-
tent, to prevent it ; and he dilated upon the consequent
evils : " Overcrowding, the mixing of the sexes, and the
results — incest, bastardy, filthy and degrading habits, and,
as a consequence rather than a cause, a degraded home,
drunkenness, and generally an absence of religion and
morality in any true sense." This is the testimony of one who
had seen what he speaks of. It is these terrible evils that
we are striving to grapple with in some fashion ; and if you
think our view a mistaken one, and that we are blundering
in the remedy we propose, you must say that we are grap-
pling with an evil the gravity of which you cannot over-
estimate ; and, therefore, if we err, it is from want of know-
ledge, and not from evil will. If this effort of ours is to be met,
it is not by the brutal method of repression. The proper way
of meeting mistake is argument, and the proper way of meet-
ing error is to bring truth to oppose it. If Dr. Knowlton

is wrong in his checks, let some one who is competent to do
it write a pamphlet pointing out his objections, but do not
bring us in as criminals when w^e are trying to grapple with
a terrible amount of immorality in our capital. You find
this immorality quite as prevalent in the agricultural dis-
tricts as in the towns. I am now going to quote from a report
of the evidence which came before the " Royal Commission
on the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children
in Agriculture," published in 1868. I shall quote the evidence
of one gentleman, the Rev. J. Fraser, now so worthily
elevated to the see of Manchester, and who has made him-
self remarkable as a bishop by his intense sympathy with
the poor. I am willing to base my case here purely on the
report, and I shall not weary you by unnecessary comments.
I find that in this report Dr. Fraser, dealing with this very
(juestion of overcrowding, puts the case in a terribly strong
fashion : — It is impossible to exaggerate the ill effects of
such a state of things in every respect — physical, social,
economical, moral, intellectual. Physically, a ruinous, ill-
drained cottage, ' cribb'd, cabin'd, confined,' and over-
crowded, generates any amount of disease — fevers of every
type, catarrh, rheumatism — as well as intensifies to the
utmost that tendency to scrofula and phthisis which, from
their frequent intermarriages and their low diet, abounds so
largely among the poor. Socially, nothing can be more
wretched than the condition of ' open ' parishes, like Dock-
ing, in Norfolk, and South Cerney, in Gloucestershire, into
which have been poured remorselessly the scum and off-
scouring of their ^ close ' neighbours. Economically, the
imperfect distribution of cottages deprives the farmer of a
large proportion of his effective labour power. The em-
ployer who has no cottages to offer those whom he employs
must either attract labourers by the offer of higher wages
or must content himself with refuse ; and in either case,
when he gets his man gets him more or less enfeebled by
the distance he has had to travel to his work. The moral
consequences are fearful to contemplate. ' I only wonder,'
writes one clergyman to me, ' that our agricultural poor are
as moral as they are.' Modesty must be an unknown
virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where, in one small
chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as they can be
packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and growing
up girls — two and sometimes three generations — are herded
promiscuously ; where every operation of the toilette, and of

nature — dressings, undressings, births, deaths — is performed
by each within the sight or hearing of all ; where children of
both sexes, to as high an age as twelve or fourteen, or even
more, occupy the same bed ; v/here the whole atmosphere
is sensual, and human nature is degraded into something
below the level of the swine. It is a hideous picture ; and
the picture is drawn from life. Mr. Clarke, of Norwich,
can tell any one who will ask him tales of things that he has
himself seen, horrifying enough to make the very hair stand
on end. The medical gentleman, whose evidence I publish,
assures me that cases of incest are anything but uncommon.
We complain of the ante-nuptial unchastity of our women, of
the loose talk and conduct of the girls who work in the
fields, of the light way in which maidens part with their
honour, and how seldom either a parent's or a brother's
blood boils with shame — here^ in cottage herding, is the
sufficient account and history of it all.'' It is, indeed, a
fearful picture, but it is one drawn from the life by the
Bishop of Manchester, whom you cannot imagine is making
a sensational tale for the purpose of attracting popularity.
I have myself seen four generations of human beings
crowded together into one small room, simply divided into
two or three beds, and I will ask you if, after such an expe-
rience as that, you wonder that I risk even prison and fine
if I can bring some salvation to those poor whose misery I
have seen. I will not trouble you to read an extract from
proceedings before the Truro magistrates, concerning a man
named Tonkin, with nine little ones, seven of whose
children were found huddled up in one corner, while the
rest were lying about the floor without bedding. He was
told that he must clear out ; he did not want to go to the
workhouse, but he was told that ^' the nuisance must be
abated," and he had to go. There are so many of these
Tonkins, but they only come to the top when the crimes
that flow from their habits of life shock the public ear.
These crimes are the natural results of the way they live ;
and if we took our own children, gentlemen, and herded
them among the filthy associations of these poor people, could
we expect from them in their manhood and their womanhood
that purity and refinement which we pride ourselves on making
possible for them ? There is one additional evil, and that is
the large amount of illegitimacy which overcrowding gives
rise to in country parishes. It is no doubt a fact that among
illegitimate children you get a far higher death-rate, the

reasons for which are so obvious that I need not dwell upon
them. At Sheffield, the proportion of deaths of illegitimate
children is just now 305 per 1000 in the first year. I
think, my lord, that is a check on population of a
most terrible character, and the report of the registrar
of Sheffield has been copied into the papers as show-
ing the terrible way in which that check has affected
the increase of the population. Leaving the question of
overcrowding, there is the question of insufficiency of food,
and of its unwholesome character. I put it to you that this
is caused by the fact that many a man does not earn suffi-
cient wages to maintain the number of children he brings
into the world. It was said when the Corn Laws were
repealed that the effect of that measure would be aa
enormous reduction in the price of bread, which would
enable the poor to live in comfort. Starvation then got so
far in England that it was common in the agricultural
districts to get up riots against the farmers because the
people, in the misery of their starvation, imagined that the
farmers hoarded up the corn, and so kept up the price of
breai. There is no question that if books of this character
had been circulated then, you would not have had that
sudden increase of the population which was one of the
most remarkable effects of the repeal of the Corn Laws.
In the Registrar-General's returns you find that, in conse-
quence of the high rates of wages, marriages are more
frequent in certain districts. It is an unfortunate thing
that wherever you get more food you find this reckless,
improvident fashion of never pausing to think whether the
increase of to-day may not be followed by a decrease
to-morrow, and that, if so, the food will be insufficient for
the little ones to be brought into the world, fjr the food
which would be sufficient for a small family is quite insuffi-
cient for a large one. We iiear much talk about the physical
deterioration of Englishmen ; we hear much talk about the
artisan of Sheffield or of Manchester not being the same
strong, healthy man that his grandfather was, and the reason
is not far to seek. When his grandfather was born the popu-
lation of England was about half what it is at the present time,
so that the man of to-day has less room tolive in, less food, less
clothing, less possibility of health, and that will (grow and is
growing) worse year by year unless some scientific thought may
be brought to bear upon this great question. I need not repeat
that all these are the checks v/hich the Solicitor-General

said were afforded by nature and providence. Another
of the natural checks is the terrible drunkenness prevailing,
among a large number of our poor. It is oftentimes the
result of want of food, simply because with so little money
they seem to think they can get temporary oblivion with
a small amount of drink, while they cannot get enough whole-
some food to stop the craving v/hich nature gives. All these
causes operate in a double fashion, causing premature
death among the adults, and acting in an even more terrible
fashion upon the unhealthy children who are born of drunken
and dissolute parents, amidst such awful associations, grow-
ing up feeble, blood-poisoned, and only half human in many
ways. It has often been remarked that when you get to the
lowest grade of the criminal class you observe a kind of
marked type. This is because the lives of their parents,
have so unhurnanized them, that the children born of such
parents are literally a lower race than those of parents
whose happier circumstances have raised them above
that condition. If you want to know how these checks,
operate there, again, I think I shall be able to call before
you clear medical evidence. For instance, we fmd Dr.
Drysdale, whom we shall, by and bye, put into the box, who-
Y/ill tell you, I have no doubt, how these checks oper-
ate, and the reflex results which arise from over-crowd-
ing, with the consequent and continual advance of death
rate among the children of the rich as vvell as among the
children of the poor. I say among the rich as well as
among the poor, though among the poor the death rate is
three times as heavy as among the rich. If you go to
Islington you find a million of children, all under five
years of age, and among them the death rate is 66-9 in
a thousand, although Islington is one of the healthiest
districts in the metropolis. The death rate, however, is
nearly double that in the eastern districts. If you go to
Whitechapel, for instance, there the death rate is as much
as 102 in a thousand; they die before reaching the age of
five years. In Manchester, again, the death-rate is 117 in a
thousand ; in Liverpool it is 132 in a thousand; and all that
death rate I put down as death resulting from Vv'hat I call
preventible diseases, and I urge that you can only judge upon
this case when you put before yourselves clearly whether it
is either moral or right to allow children to be brought into
the world, inoculated with the predisposition to be at-
tacked by these preventible diseases, nistead of putting, as

I believe you ought to do, a check which would eQcctively
reheve the population so terribly overcrowded ; and you
have to consider whether by refusing to apply such a check,
we are not, by the very refusal, making a large class of
criminals. I will put it to you whether such a check would
not be a moral one, and I need not enter very fully into all
the details, my point being only that some preventive check,
is necessary and would be effectual *'This excessive
mortality is no doubt mainly due to our crowded
and unwholesome dwellings, and to insufficient
food and clothing ; these causes more or less directly
originate from poverty, and therefore would work with
intensified effect if poverty were increased. It may be,
therefore, thought that the evil of over-population carries
with it its own cure ; that as the people increase in number
poverty beomes greater ; that, if there is more poverty there
will be a larger number of deaths. A check to increasing
population is thus brought into operation, and hence things
Avill be restored to the same state as they were before. The
hardest words which have been ever used against Malthusi-
anism altogether fail adequately to characterise such a

doctrine Some definite idea may be formed on the

subject by considering the results involved in the present
high death-rate prevailing amongst the children of the poor.
Assume that there are looo of these children, that 500 of
them die before the age of five, whereas if they were as well
cared for as the children of more wealthy parents, only 200
of them would die before this age. The death, therefore,
of 300 is to be traced to defects in our social and
economic condition. These children are literally slaughtered
and in a manner, moreover, which indicates prolonged suffer-
ing. But this is only a part, and perhaps the smaller part, of
the mischief w^hich is done : the causes which produce
this excessive mortality do not alone affect the children
who die ; all those who survive are also brought under
the same blighting influence. Consequently, to all, the
struggle for existence becomes more severe, the more
weakly succumb ; even the stronger who survive, in passing
through the trying ordeal, often contract the germs of
future disease, their constitutions being in too many cases
undermined. Physical deterioration ensues, and a whole
people may thus become gradually stunted and enfeebled."
Mr. Fawcett, in his essay on Pauperism, its Causes
and Remedies," page 107, says: — "There is amongst

tlie poorer classes an excessive mortality amongst
children. In the wealthy parish of St. George's,
Hanover Square, less than one-third of the total number
of deaths is of children under five years old ; whereas, in
the poor parish of Bethnal Green the deaths of children
under five amounted to more than half the total number of
deaths.'' Another check on the population is what is called
baby farming. Some years ago, as you may remember,
there w^re brought before the police courts very terrible
facts in connection with this point, in consequence of prose-
cutions that were instituted with reference to what was
called " baby farming.'' Just take one instance which I
find mentioned as occurring about that time. A child three
years of age was employed in one of those places as a ganger
over eight other children, in the midst of whom it sat up in
bed and as soon as any one of them awoke it was its dut\'
to put the bottle into its mouth. If any of you, gentlemen,
have children three years of age, what would you say of
putting such babies over eight other children still younger
than themselves, which it would be their duty to take
care of all night? Consider this fact, gentlemen, and
then say if you can wonder at the terrible preventible
morality among the children of the poor ? These are the
views which w'e hold, and however this trial may end,
whether we succeed in the action that is pending or not, it
will still be our bounden duty to proceed on the course
in which we have set out — not, I wish, to say, in a spirit of
undue defiance, but in a patient and yet persistent manner
on the path of duty which every good citizen owes to the
country — to bring these subjects manfully forward, and to
urge them upon the careful consideration of our countrymen
and countrywomen until, even if we have to pass through a
prison in the doing, we shall at last succeed, as all great
causes do, and we shall relieve the ruin caused by over-
population, and shall bring happiness to the poor, the down-
trodden, and the oppressed. There is another kind of
check which Dr. Drysdale puts, about which, when he
comes before you, he may have something to say. I refer
to the very common occurrence of overlying children
amongst the poor. Dr. Lancaster puts the case, let me say,
very strongly when he states that there are 16,000 mothers
in London w^ho have in this way committed child murder.
I should be very sorry to believe that this is the case, and
I may venture to hope that it savours something of

rhetorical exaggeration ; but in spite of that, this habit of
overlying amongst the poor, resulting in coroner's inquests
mid verdicts of accidental death, is far too common, v/hen in
one district in the metropolis alone we find that it gives
rise to loi inquests in the course of a single year, and I
cannot help thinking that this is one of those preventible
causes of death to which I have been referring. In many
cases doctors, driven to their wit's-end, have been forced to
give certificates of accidental death from suffocation, while
they were aware that there might have been motives for the
occurrence, as evidenced by the fact that the child was con-
sidered by the parents unwelcome, and as adding p. new
burden in the struggle with which the poor are afflicted. One
other cause I shall put before you, upon the clearest possible
evidence, and it shall be the last of the direct checks of
y/hich, for the moment, I must speak. One other check, I say,
to the growth of the population, of the most fatal character
to the mind, as well as to the body, is the great, and I
fear ever increasing, prevalence of what is rightly and
justly called the social evil, the characteristics of which
are known to you all. Knowlton puts it that this terrible
scourge leads to sterility, and that sexual intemperance
brings in its train the most baneful results. Another of
the results which flow from sexual vice is illegitimacy,
and, in the case of such children, the chances of life
are very small, as will readily be seen, when we consider
the circumstances under which such children are born.
These are the direct checks which, among us, are at present
keeping down the ever-growing increase of the population,
in addition to the most fatal diseases that flow from them,
all of which, or at any rate, most of which, are, as I contend,
preventible, and which will, I fear, still more increase unless
we take steps to remove the cause. These diseases I need
scarcely add are a fruitful cause of the gradual deteriora-
tion which we see taking effect among the working classes,
and unless some means can be adopted to stop them, they
v/ill increase more and more. Professor Fawcett, in his
Manual of Political Economy, I find urges upon his
readers, on the very same grounds, this question which
I have ventured to put before you, and I need not add
that it comes from him with far greater weight than it
possibly can from me. He states that among children
belonging to the upper and middle classes 20 per cent,
die before they reach the age of five and he adds

that the amount is more than doubled in the case of chil-
dren belonging to the labouring classes. This great mor-
tality' amongst poor children is caused by neglect, by want of
proper food, and by unwholesome dwellings. When v;e
take these facts, and find that this large number of cluldren
have literally been murdered ; when you consider that the
number of these children who, if they had been born in a
higher rank w^ould not have died, is calculated by Professor
Fawcett at 1,150,000, taking the proportion into account
that die amongst the poor more than among the rich, you
will see what a large and important question this is, and you
will be able to estimate the nature of the evil against which
I am pleading to-day. Professor Fawcett in this matter is,
I may say, strengthened by the observations of Mrs. Faw-
cett, that Millicent Garrett, who has become so well and
so honourably known. She, too, says that the alarming-
death-rate amongst the children of the poor, which is in-
duced chiefly by the ' want of food, clothing, and atten-
tion, and from over-crowding " in those districts where
they herd together," is "appalling, and is a blot upon
the civilisation of this country" (^'Political Economy for
Beginners," p. no). Are you, gentlemen, going to give a
verdict of guilty against my co-defendant and myself —
against a man and a w^oman w^hose only efforts have been to
consider seriously the means by which this wholesale death
may be arrested, and thus to remove the blot which Mrs.
Fawcett says has been put upon the civilisation of the
country to which we are all proud to belong ? These are
the natural checks to the overgrov/th of the population im-
posed "by Nature and Providence ;" and I will now ask you
to consider the means by which the wholesale misery can
be avoided which is caused by the operation of those
checks. I put it to you whether you are prepared to take
upon yourselves the task of bringing in a verdict against us,
who, feeling the terrible responsibility lying upon us with
regard to the poor, and seeing that the natural checks are
incapable of keeping down the population to legitimate
limits, and that its undue increase brings about us a mass
of human crime and misery, try to substitute prudential for
positive checks. It is that crime and misery which we
desire to alleviate by applying checks to the over-population
of the country — checks so much required at the present time.
In that endeavour, so far as it is set forth in this publication,
we — Dr. Knowlton, my co-defendant, and myself — we are

all equally responsible. Our desire is common. We wish
to bring in effectual checks if possible, and checks which, at
the same time, will not harm those who apply them, and
which in themselves are neither immoral nor degrading. If
the preventive check, the birth-restricting check, does not
touch human happiness or affect national morality,
it is surely preferable to the terrible checks provided by
nature and providence." One argument only of those
which are used against the checks which we propose to in-
troduce is deserving of smallest consideration. Mr. Darwin
in his Origin of Species" puts that argument in the strong-
est light. Mr. Darwin thinks rightly, with reference
to the lower animals, that the application of natural^'
checks upon the natural rate of increase is really for the
welfare and progress of the various classes of brutes ; and Mr.
Darwin thinks this " natural" check good for the human
species, and in this he is supported to a certain extent by Mr.
Herbert Si)encer. I will venture to lay before you what I
consider to be his strongest statement of that argument, and
therefore of any possible objection. Mr. Darwin, writing to us
a few days since. ;^^i*nted our attention to the following ex-
tract from nis " Descent of Man," p. 6i8 : — The enncince-
';.ent of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem ;
all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject
poverty for their children, for poverty is not only a great
evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness
in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr, Galton has re-
marked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless
marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better
members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no
doubt advanced to his present high condition through a
struggle for existence, consequent on his rapid multiplica-
tion, and if he is to advance still higher it is to be feared
that he must remain subject to a severe struggle ; other-
wise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men
would not be more successful in the battle of life than the
less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though lead-
ing to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly dimi-
nished by any means." That is Mr. Darwin's position, and,
putting aside for a moment the awful amount of human
misery which it accepts as the necessary condition of pro-
gress, let us see if the position be defensible. I have no-
doubt that if natural checks were allowed to operate right
through the human, as they do in the animal, world, this re-

-suit would follow. But I may be allowed to direct atten-
tion to the point that Mr. Darwin has overlooked, the fact
that these natural checks are not so allowed to operate
among men and women. Mr. Darwin, you must remember,
is accustomed to dealing chiefly, if not exclusively, with the
animal kingdom — I mean the animal kingdom as excluding
man. He, therefore, overlooks the elements which ac-
company the struggle for existence as it goes on among
the higher class of animals — i.e.^ man — and that it
is in no way comparable with that which goes on
among the lower. Among the brutes the weaker are
driven to the wall, the diseased fall out in the race of
life, and the old brutes, when feeble or sickly, are killed.
We all know and have read of instances in which wounded
stags have been set upon by their companions and killed.
If that were the case amongst men — if the drunken and the
improvident were over -ridden in the struggle for existence
by those who were careful and temperate — the result might
be to improve those who survived, and Mr. Darwin's position
might be true. If men insisted that those who were sickly
should be allowed to die without help of medicine or of
science — if those who were weak were put upon one side
and crushed — if those who were old and useless were killed
— if those who were not capable of providing food for
themselves were allowed to starve, — if all that were done,
the struggle for existence among men would be as real as
it is among brutes, and would doubtless result in the
production of a higher race of men ; but are you willing to
do that, or to allow it to be done ? If not, you are taking
away the natural checks instead of keeping them; and
instead of improving the race of human beings in the midst
of a struggle for existence, you are perpetuating that which
tends to the deterioration of the race. For what are you
doing ? You are protecting and fostering the most careless,
the most improvident, the most thoughtless, the most
drunken, the most miserable, the most criminal elements of
your population, and so you are perpetuating improvidence,
crime, misery, disease, and all that tends to the deterioration
of the race, while the more provident and more thrifty —
those whose qualities should be transmitted, are exactly
those who do not marry. Put in this way, the objection, I
think, is not valid ; and it seems to me that in his argument
Mr. Darwin has altogether overlooked this aspect of the ques-
tion, which is fatal to the ground that he has taken up — the

ground that the natural checks should be sufficient in the
human as in the animal kingdoms to overcome the tendency
to over-population. We have not, therefore, to deal with
natural so much as with scientific checks.

The Lord Chief Justice : I think that is a point very-
well worthy the serious consideration of Mr. Darwin.
Whether there may result, as a consequence of the struggle
for existence among mankind, the survival of a smaller
number of the strongest, or a larger number of the weaker,,
and whether, should it be found that the weaker survive,,
the race is not by that means in process of deterioration.
The process might result in a few of a higher race, but the
effect on the masses would be an increase of suffering and
of misery.

Mrs. Besant: That, my lord, is just the point that I
have been endeavouring to make. My contention is that
these natural checks cannot have free operation among
men, and, although where they have, they eliminate the
weaker portions of races, they cannot be fairly applied to-
mankind ; and I trust I shall be able to show that as they
cannot be so applied, we are left with the great difficulty that
the weaker, who, in the animal world would be pushed out
of existence, are, among men, capable of communicating-
their weaknesses to their offspring, and so they deteriorate
succeeding generations. It is for that reason that we seek
to bring in an artificial check. Nature balances herself, but
if we remove her checks by civilization, and cure those whom
she would kill, we must put some other checks in their place.
Mr. Darwin believes with us that is necessary to apply some
check, in order to promote civilization among men, and to
eliminate the elements which all are agreed should be
suppressed if possible. He points out (p. 133), that among
" savages, the weak, in body or mind, are soon eliminated,''
and that "we civiHzed men, on the other hand, do our
utmost to check the process of elimination; we build
asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick ; we
institute poor laws ; and our medical men exert their
utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last
moment There is reason to [believe, that vaccination has
preserved thousands, who, from a weak constitution, would
formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak
members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No
one who has attended to the breeding of domestic
animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the

race of man." But Mr. Darwin does not meet his own
argument. He states his case, he puts the fact upon
record, but he does not suggest any positive remedy, nor
does he show how such a remedy, if known, can be appHed,
so as to ensure success. The checks we propose might
eliminate the sickly, just as does the struggle for existence.
Dr. Knowlton insists that the proper check to be applied is,
not to interfere v/ith the natural and healthy play of the
feeling of mankind, but one which may be applied after
marriage, and that check, he contends, would deal with
the evils of over-population successfully. He does not
propose that the check should involve any undue or
any unnatural restraint, and so far he is at complete
issue with Mr. Malthus, who argues in favour of late, and
against early, marriages. Differing, as I do, with Malthus on
this point, I here utterly sever my allegiance to him. I do not
believe in delaying marriage until a late age in consequence
of the considerations he urges for doing so. Malthus puts his
argument very clearly and strongly, and it is one which, in
my opinion, very few people indeed will be found ready to
adopt. No doubt late marriage, from his point of view,
v/ould provide some sort of check, but the attendant evils
are so great that I infinitely prefer a check which does not
necessitate late marriages. Such a check, I believe, has
been found by Dr. Knowlton. Malthus says, pp. 404, 405 :
*'When the wages of labour are hardly sufficient to maintain
tv/o children, a man marries and has five or six ; he, of
course, finds himself miserably distressed. He accuses the
insufficiency of the price of labour to maintain a family. He
accuses his parish for their tardy and sparing fulfilment of
their obligation to assist him. He accuses the avarice of the
rich, v/ho suffer him to want what they can so well spare.
He accuses the partial and unjust institutions of society,
v/hich have awarded him an inadequate share of the produce
of the earth. He accuses, perhaps, the dispensations of
Providence, which have assigned to him a place in society
so beset with unavoidable distress and dependence. In
searching for objects of accusation, he never adverts
to the quarter from which his misfortunes originate. The
last person he would think of accusing is himself."
I shall put it to you that whether the man be a labouring
man or one of higher rank who marries, and, in course of
time, brings into the world a number of children, when
he has not sufficient income to provide adequately for

G 2

100

their wants, is a man who commits a crime, not only against
the children themselves, who are born into misery, but
commits a crime against the society of which he is a member,
because all the children brought into the world, which
cannot be sufficiently provided for by their parents, are
thrown, for maintenance, upon the saving, the thoughtful,
and the self-restraining portion of the community, who have
not given rein to their passions. You have Malthus
saying that, by the proposal he puts forward, there is
a fair prospect that those who bring children into existence
shall have a fair means of supporting them; but it did not
strike him that young men would not exercise that self-
restrain which he advocated, and which he holds to
be the bounden duty of men before marriage. He says :
" Our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect of
being able to support our children will appear to deserve
the attention of the moralist, if it can be proved that an
attention to this obligation is of most powerful effect in the
prevention of misery ; and that if it were the general
custom to follow the first impulse of nature, and marry at
the age of puberty, the universal prevalence of every known
virtue in the greatest conceivable degree would fail of
rescuing society from the most wretched and desperate
state of want, and all the diseases and famines which usually
accompany it.'' And he urges : All that the society can
reasonably require of its members is that they should
not have families without being able to support
them. This may be fairly enjoined as a positive duty."
"This preventive check does act," he says, ^'to some extent.
The most cursory view of society in this country must con-
vince us that throughout all ranks the preventive check to
population prevails in a considerable degree. Those among
the higher classes, who live principally in towns, often want
the inclination to marry, from the facility with which they
can indulge themselves in an illicit intercourse with the sex.
And others are deterred from marrying by the idea of the
expenses that they must retrench, and the pleasures of which
they must deprive themselves, on the supposition of having
a family. A man of liberal education, with an income only
just sufficient to enable him to associate in the rank of gentle-
men, must feel absolutely certain that if he marry, and have
a family, he shall be obliged to give up all his former con-
nections. The woman whom a man of education w^ould
naturally make the object of his choice, is one brought up

lOI

in the same habits and sentiments with himself, and used to
the familiar intercourse of a society totally different from
that to which she must be reduced by marriage. Can a
man easily consent to place the object of his affection in a
situation so discordant probably to her habits and inclina-
tions ? Two or three steps of descent in society, particularly
at this round of the ladder, where education ends and
ignorance begins, will not be considered by the generality
of , people as a chimerical, but a real evil." Malthus also
points out, but I will not trouble you or take up the time
of the Court by quoting the passage, that this check acts
in the most unfair fashion. It is not those who ought to
refrain from marriage, but those who ought to marry who
hesitate. It is those who by extra carefulness and fore-
sight fear the results, those who feel the full weight of the
responsibility pressing upon them, to whom marriage is dis-
agreeable, and on the other hand it is those who have no care
or prevision for those whom they will in the natural order of
events have to support, who rush into marriage, and never
think of consequences. But is late marriage a good check,
and is it productive of morality? The Lord Chief Justice
pointed out yesterday that the object of this book was not to<
prevent early marriages, because the author of it speaks strongly
in favour of them, but simply to discover someway in which
the moral effects of early marriages might not lead to the
immoral effects which occur from over large families. To
put off marriage to a late age is, in my opinion, almost cer-
tain to lead to immorality, and to consequences of the most
unfortunate and regrettable kind. In the first place, people
would never consent to the long continuance of self-denial
which is involved in the idea. You will never get any large
majority of men or women whose natural instincts lead them
to join their hands in marriage to forbear, and, therefore, I
consider that this is one of the most impracticable schemes
w^hich ever entered into the brain of a man of intelligence
to propound. Dr. Knowlton's scheme is a very different
one. He states that it is a piece of folly to suppose that
men and women " will become monks and nuns during the
very holiday of their existence, and abjure during the fairest
years of life the nearest and dearest of social relations, to
avert a catastrophe which they and perhaps their children
will not live to witness." I say that men and women will
marry young — in the flower of their age — and more espe-
cially will this be the case amongst the poorer classes. You

I02

^vill find that Mr. Montague Cookson, who is one of Her
Majesty's counsel learned in the law, and whose duty
it is to assist and promote, not to hinder, public
morality, ridicules the idea that a young man who
has the chance of marrying will refrain from doing so.
He says : To tell a labouring man who has the chance of
a cottage that he is not, on prudential grounds, to think of
marrying until he has mastered the law of averages, and
that even then he is running a considerable risk, is little else
than a solemn mockery, and he is entitled to retort that he
does not care to be more prudent than his betters. To
him a wife is infinitely more necessary than to those of
ampler means ; for, the public-house apart, all his material
comforts must be looked for in his ov/n home, whilst
his richer neighbours may satisfy all their wants abroad.
It is one thing to have a club-kitchen, and another
to have a kitchen for your club.'' That passage
puts shortly and fairly the very feeling that I have
myself I cannot go to the poor man, and tell him that
the brightest part of his life is to be spent alone, and that
he is to be shut out for years from the comforts of a home
and the happiness of married life. I shall have to press this
point strongly upon you because the Solicitor-General, in the
remarks he addressed to you yesterday, told you that Dr.
Knowlton used the word " marriage " merely to cloak his
hidden object of advocating a system of immorality. If that
is true, the same censure passed on the author of this book
must equally attach to my co-defendant and to myself; but let
me point out to you that to put forward such a theory is
really preposterous, and had it come from any one else than
a Sohcitor-General who is so high in his profession, so well
practised at the bar, and so thoroughly acquainted with the
courtesies which belong to a court of justice, I should say that
it was one of the most unjust and malicious suggestions that
could have fallen from the mouth of an unjust advocate
against any defendant whom he was prosecuting. I
am going to put this point strongly before you. What
do you find ? Why, that amongst young professional men
marriage is less common than it was ; not that they have
any disinclination to the married state, not that they
shrink from the enjoyment of wife and home, but because
they have seen and taken to heart the miseries which
too often follow early marriages, and a consequent large
family, and they refrain from following their natural inch-

103

nation from prudential motives. The struggle through which
■they have to pass before they arrive at an honourable position
either at the bar, in medicine, or in the church is such
that they reflect three times — ay, four times, before they
ask a woman of culture and refinement to place herself in a
jDosition where for perhaps eight or nine years her home-life
will be a mockery of comfort and a weariness. And yet
I say that to put off marriage to a late age is utterly de-
morahsing in its tendency. You will find that fairly put
in the first chapter of the " Fruits of Philosophy and while
I read the extract, I ask you to remember that of such a pas-
•age it is put to you by the Solicitor-General that the language
is only used as a cover for the advocacy of public immorality.
Dr. Knowlton says of late marriage : But, besides being
ineffectual, or if effectual, requiring a great sacrifice of
•enjoyment, this restraint is highly objectionable on the score
'Of its demoralising tendency. It would give rise to a fright-
ful increase of prostitution, of intemperance and onanism,
and prove destructive to health and moral feelings.'' And
~he goes on : Let us now turn our attention to the case of
Tinmarried youth. Almost all young persons, on reach-
ing the age of maturity, desire to marry. That heart
must be very cold, or very isolated, that does not find
some object on which to bestov/ its affections. Thus,
early marriages would be almost universal did not prudential
•considerations interfere. The young man thinks ' I cannot
marry yet, I cannot support a family. I must make money
first and think of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.'
And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely re-
solved, in a few years to share it with her whom he now loves.
But passions are strong and temptations great. Curiosity,
perhaps, introduces him into the company of those poor
creatures whom society first reduces to a dependence on the
most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses for being
wdiat she has made them. There his health and moral feel-
ings alike make shipwreck. The affections he had thought
to treasure up for their first object are chilled by dissipation
and blunted by excess. He scarcely retains a passion but
avarice. Years pass on — years of profligacy and speculation
— and his first wish is accomplished, his fortune is made.
Where now are the feelings and resolves of his youth ? He
is a man of pleasure, a man of the world. He laughs
at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If
gaudy equipage and gay parties confer happiness, he is

104

happy ; but If they be only the sunshine on the stormy se^
below,, he is a victim to that system of morality which for-
bids a reputable connection until the period when provision
has been made for a large expected family. Had he mar-
ried the first object of his choice, and simply delayed becom-
ing a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it, how
different might have been his lot. Until men and womeni
are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except
when they themselves desire it, they ever will form mer-
cenary and demoralizing connections, and seek in dissipation'
the happiness they might have found in domestic life.'''
This is written by the man whom the Solicitor-General
would have you believe advises young people to rush inta
promiscuous intercourse and give the reins to their unre-
strained passions. You are asked ito believe that, and I
can only hope that the sudden strain of parliamentary
duty which has lately taken up so much of the time of
the Solicitor-General has prevented him from reading
this book over with that carefulness which it deserves. If
it is not so, I fear I should have to accuse him of something
worse than I feel disposed to do under the circumstances.
There is no word or suggestion of promiscuous intercourse here.
Gentlemen, this is the language of a man who is put before
you as one desirous of stirring up the passions of youth, and
I ask you whether a man with that intention at heart would
be likely to preface his book with remarks directly aimed
against profligacy of every sort, and with such solemn
warnings against every kind of unfair and immoral living. I
think, therefore, I may fairly put it that every young
man naturally desires to make a home and enter
upon married life when first he comes out into
the world. I do not believe that any young man sets
out with the intention of rushing into fast life and
dissipation, but men are frequently drawn into habits of tha:>
kind because they fear the results that follow from earV
marriage. Since I am told that our object is to increase
immorality, and that we only use the word ''marriage
to conceal the foulest designs upon the purity of society,.
I may say freely that I hold early marriages to be the very
salvation of young men, and especially of young men in
our large cities. I hold the belief with a depth of convic-
tion which I cannot put to you in words, that for one man
and one woman to help, comfort, and support one another,
which they are by nature adapted to do, is a state which

is to be reached, which is to be perpetuated by marriage^
and in no other way. It is only by companionship, and the
union between a man and a woman, that this is possible.
Shut a young man out from the loving influences of home^
the golden institutions of the fireside, his wife's society, and
the happiness of becoming a father, and you induce a life of
profligacy. Gentlemen, do not be deceived. There is
no talk in this book of preventing men and women from
becoming parents ; all that is sought here is to limit the
number of their family. And we do not aim at that
because we do not love children, but, on the contrary,
because we do love them, and because we wish to prevent
them from coming into the world in greater numbers than
there is the means of properly providing for. Children,
I believe, have an influence upon parents purifying in
the highest degree, because they teach the parents self-
restraint, self-denial, thoughtfulness, and tenderness to an
extent that cannot possibly be over-estimated ; and it is.
because I v/ish to have it made possible for young men and
for young women to have these influences brought to bear
upon them in their youth, that I advocate the circulation of
a book that will put within their reach the knowledge of
how to limit the extent of their families within their capa-
bilities of providing for them ; for no man can look with
pride and happiness upon his home if he has more children
than he can clothe and educate. It is because I wish them
to marry in the springtime of their youth that I ask you by
your verdict in this action to make discussion on these sub-
jects possible, and that men should not be driven
to find a substitute for true and pure womanhood and
wifehood in other directions. If you render this possible
you will make your streets purer and your families,
happier than they are at present. You have frequentl7
heard the question of disinclination to marry brought
forward, and it was not so long since discussed
in the public newspapers, and I put it to you whether
that was the case fifty years ago ? If it was not, what is the
reason ? Any young man might have married and brought
up a family then in comfort, while with the same income he
would find it impossible to do so to-day ; marriage is less
frequent because young men have felt the effects of the law
of over-population without knowing clearly from what they
are suffering. The increase of population has decreased
the value of income, and where the income does not in-

io6

crease with the famih', an over number of children brought
into the world only means pauperism. Hence it is that the
riatural desire for marriage is thwarted by the present state
of things, and this leads, as Dr. Knowlton puts it, either to
proflicacy or to asceticism. I need not re-read the passage on
profligacy to you; you have seen he speaks strongly against
it. lake a passage from Mr. Montagu Cookson on the
same subject. He says : If, indeed, we could all become
perfect beings, the rule of life deduced by Malthus from
the unalterable law of population would be both practicable
and safe : as it is, it has a direct tendency to promote the
•cardinal vice of cities — that of unchastity. The number of
ivomen in England who ply the loathesome trade of prosti-
tution is already large enough to people a county, and, as
•our great thoroughfares show at nightfall, is certainly not
diminishing. Their chief supporters justify themselves by
t]ie very plea which Malthus uses to enforce the duty of
continence, namely, that they are not well enough off to
maintain a wife and family. If they could be sure that they
could limit the number of their children, so as to niake it
commensurate with their income, not only would the plea
be generally groundless, but I believe it would not be urged,
and the so-called social evil would be stormed in its strongest
fortress. The vice itself vv^ould become more immoral,
because more without excuse, and its greater immorality
would, as in the case of other offences, help to make it more
rare. The world at large is only tolerant in matters relating
to the sexes when the frailty of human nature makes it
necessary that it should be." But, gentlemen, we are not
perfect beings ; and if young men only knew how to limit
the number of their families, then they would have no dis-
inclination to marry. I may just put before you the terrible
results of profligacy, and in doing so do not imagine that I
think you do not know far better than I do the enormous
amount of damage which comes from that which is called
^'the great social evil," against which it has been thought
necessary to invoke a special class of most unfortunate
legislation. It is not only a danger for the bodies of young
men, but, perhaps, a still greater danger to their minds,
for association with women of the character of those to
whom I refer makes a man lose his respect for pure v/oman-
hood, and taints the sacred bond of married life even
when it is at last entered upon ; and to the unhappy women
who are the victims of this terrible evil the injury is yet

107

worse : they become hardened out of all that is woinaniy ,
reckless in their shame, they rush into drunkenness and excess,
and end, too often, a miserable life with a disgraceful death.
Tliese are some of the miseries which flow from the social
evil ; and if we could introduce checks after marriage has
taken place, we should v/ound the evil in its vital point.
If the Solicitor-General should again endeavour to make you
imagine that we are using the word marriage because our
real and our avowed objects are opposed, let me ask you to
remember Avhat I have said on this point. If profligacy is
bad, what shall we say of asceticism ? If you now take
up the passage on page 7, where I left it a short time ago,
you will see how he treats the matter of asceticism : ^' Some-
times, if even rarely, the young mind does hold to its flrst
resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy
and solitary anxiety, happy, if before the best hours of his
life are gone, and his warmest feelings withered, he may
return to claim the reward of his forbearance and his industry.
But even in this comparatively happy case, shall we count
for nothing the years of ascetic sacrifice at which after
happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too
many, nor its afl'ections too lasting. V/e may, indeed, if a
great object require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other.
But is this, in itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us
that such a sacrifice is a dead loss — to the warm-hearted
often a grievous one ? Does not wisdom bid us temperately
enjoy the springtime of life, Svhile the evil day come not,
nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say we have no
pleasure in them.' Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth
v/ho thus sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely
between the two evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true;
but let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It
is 7iot good for man to be alone. It is for no man or woman's
happiness or benefit that they should be condemned to
Shakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings and an
injury to the character. A life of rigid celibacy, though
infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraugh'j
with many evils. Peevishness, restlessness, vague longings,
and instabihty of character, are amongst the least of these ;
the mind is unsettled and the judgment warped. Even the
very instinct which is thus mortified assumes an undue im-
portance, and occupies a portion of the thoughts which does
not of right or nature belong to it, and which during a life
of satisfied affection it would not obtain." So he goes on to

io8

point out that both are evils, but that it is more wise to
choose asceticism than profligacy ; yel at the same time
he points out clearly the evils that flow from asceticism as
well as those that result from profligacy. For aceticism is
an evil, though not so great a one as profligacy ; it is un-
natural, and therefore it is unhealthy. We know from a
large mass of statistics collected from the census returns
that married people live longer than the unmarried. In
1853, for example, we find that the unmarried men in
France between the ages of twenty and eighty died in
a much larger proportion than did those who were mar-
ried. The figures show that 11*3 annually die out of a
thousand among the unmarried, whilst the proportion of
married men is only 6 '5. Similar results are found in
1863-4 with reference to the entire population of Scotland
above the age of twenty. Out of a thousand between the
ages of twenty and thirty 14*97 unmarried men died, whilst the
proportion of married men was only 7*24, which is less than
one-half. These figures, it seems to me, are destructive of
the theory of Malthus against early marriages. One other
point I will put before you. Dr. Drysdale, in his pamphlet
on Prostitution, dealing with the evils of celibacy, says : —
Sir Benjamin Brodie at the meeting of the Social Science
Association in Birmingham, said that the evils of ceUbacy
were so great that he could not mention them ; but that
they fully equalled those of postitution." We find also
that Mr. Holmes Coote, late surgeon to Bethlehem
Hospital, used to speak in the same way, and regarded
celibacy as one of the causes of lunacy. Evidence so
strong, you will agree with me, tells convincingly in
favour of early marriages, and against either profligacy
or celibacy. You can find, indeed you know without
my telling you, what is the opinion of medical men
regarding the evils which follow from subduing the natural
instincts and living in a state of entire celibacy; and
perhaps the evils that result from an unmarried life arc
more terrible amongst women than amongst men, because
when women are unmarried they generally lead purer lives
than do the majority of men. And you find among monks
and nuns the natural sexual desires coming out in the most
curious forms. In countries where monasteries and convents
abound a kind of thwarted sexual feeling arises, and it is
strangely exhibited even in the hymns that are sung and the
prayers that are used. Anyone who is familiar with Roman

109

Catholic or with High Church manuals will recognise this
fact. The misplaced sexual feelings run, in the case of the
monks, towards the Virgin, and in that of the nuns to the
son of the Virgin, and so nature avenges herself when she
is dwarfed and stunted, when the natural affections are not
allowed to flow in the channel prescribed by nature. The
same thing is observable among High Church sisterhoods
in this country, and is exemplified in the character of the
hymns and prayers used. These are some of the evils
that arise from celibacy, and on this point let me refer you
to the last paragraph on page 8, which I will not read, as you
have the books before you. I want to draw your attention
to the diseases that arise from celibacy, and I would specially
point out to you the value of Knowlton in such a case as
is there alluded to. You know the unhappy position of those
who are persuaded by quack doctors, playing upon their
ignorance, that they are not in a condition to enter the
married state. You can imagine the unhappiness of those
who fall into the hands of these people. They play upon
the fears of young men, and are the ruin, both in pocket
and in body, of all those who have anything to do with
them. Many of these poor victims would have been saved
a life of misery if this little sixpenny book had fallen into
their hands when they were entrapped by quack doctors ;
yes, even if the book had been sold them by a hawker —
one of those who have been sent to prison — at the
corner of a street; for on reading it they would
have learned to distrust the men who falsely told
them they were unfit to marry, and they would, in
later life, have blessed the chance opportunity that
threw the publication in their way, as they enjoyed the
blessings of a happy home, and looked around with
thankfulness upon their two or three children. Such
are a few of the evils of profligacy and asceticism,
both of which are bad, and both of which may be
obviated by early marriages. Perhaps I may here advert
to what Mr. Montagu Cookson says of the evils result-
ing from celibacy to both sides. We have often heard those
hard and unwarrantable sneers that are levelled at old maids
in this country. It is true they are often hard and sour,
because, nature being thwarted, they are thrown back upon
themselves ; they are dwarfed, dried up, and withered, all
the more certainly because they have no means of preventing
their solitary condition. Mr. Cookson puts this point very

strongly. He says : ^^To refuse marriage to men altogether^
or to require them to postpone it indefinitely after the maturity
of their judgment has justified their choice, is to inflict an
injury on the whole community by encouraging special
forms of evil, perhaps even calling them into existence.
Many a woman whose daily life is now dedicated to her
dress, or her household, or who has become so entangled in
the narrow m^eshes of acquaintanceship — which she dignifies
by the name of society — as not to have an idea beyond,
might have escaped all this bondage if imagined necessity
had not doomed her to spinsterhood. Many a man into
whose soul has stolen the slow poison of moral and intel-
lectual cynicism, might have retained his early freshness if
the example of some friend had not taught him to remain
single, rather than succumb to the yoke of marriage, with its
heavy, because uncertain, burdens. Meantime better, per-
haps, not to pry too closely into the consolations he allows him-
self, or the mode in which he seeks to reconcile what is with
what might have been." That is the way in which Mr. Cookson
pleads against late marriages. By postponing marriage,
people in middle life often find, when they take upon them-
selves its duties, that nature revenges herself upon them for
having thwarted her teachings, and too often such marriages
turn out barren, simply because the married persons, from
their long celibacy, are incapacitated from producing children,
Nature denying her blessings to those who have despised
them. I leave these remarks for your consideration. I do
not now deal with the effect of all this upon society, because
I have already said as much upon that aspect of the ques-
tion as I think necessary, and I conclude that both profligacy
and celibacy are evils, and if it is argued that early
marriages produce as great evils, we are placed in a
dilemma as to what course should be recommended.
We must inquire whether we cannot secure the benefits
of early marriages without undergoing the evils of over-
population which result from them ; but to do that we
must maintain the preventive, the birth-restricting, check,
as preferable to the death-producing, but we must bring
this check into operation after marriage, and not before.

This is the object which this book has in view, and it is no
part of its object either to destroy marriage, or to favour pro-
fligacy, or to promote promiscuous intercourse ; but, on the
contrary, to enable people to marry early, and, at the same
time, to avoid those evils which come by over-population.

Ill

John Stuart Miirs work on Political Economy — which is
regarded everywhere as a standard work, and is accepted as
a text-book at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge for
the instruction of young men, and on which young men are
examined, and in which they are taught — invites them to^
restrain their passions, and to limit the number of their
families; but, so far as this work goes, they are left in
ignorance how the recommendations it contains are to be
carried out, and, therefore, they are unable to save them-
selves from the very evils against which they are warned.
Take the following passage as a fair sample of John Stuart
Mill's opinion : — " Poverty, like most social evils, exists be-
cause men follow their brute instincts without due considera-
tion. But society is possible, precisely because man is not
necessarily a brute. CiviUsation in every one of its aspects^
is a struggle against the animal instincts. Over some, even
of the strongest of them, it has shown itself capable of
acquiring abundant control. It has artificialised large por-
tions of mankind to such an extent, that of many of their
most natural inclinations they have scarcely a vestige or
a remembrance left. If it has not brought the instinct of
population under as much restraint as is needful, we must
remember that it has never seriously tried. What efforts it
has made, have mostly been in the contrary direction.
Religion, morality, and statesmanship, have vied with one
another in incitements to marriage, and to the multiplicatioa
of the species, so it be but in v/edlock. Religion has not
even yet discontinued its encouragements. The Roman
Catholic clergy (of any other clergy it is unnecessary to
speak, since no other have any considerable influence over
the poorer classes) everywhere think it their duty to promote
marriage, in order to prevent fornication. There is still in
many minds a strong reHgious prejudice against the true
doctrine. The rich, provided the consequences do not touch
themselves, think it impugns the wisdom of Providence to
suppose that misery can result from the operation of a
natural propensity : the poor think that ' God never sends
mouths but he sends meat' No one would guess from the
language of either, that man had any voice or choice in the
matter. So complete is the confusion of ideas on the whole
subject : owing in a great degree to the mystery in which it
is shrouded by a spurious delicacy, which prefers that right and
wrong should be mismeasured and confounded on one of the
subjects most momentous to human welfare, rather than

112

that the subject should be freely spoken of and discussed.
People are little aware of the cost to mankind of this
scrupulosity of speech. The diseases of society can, no
more than corporal maladies, be prevented or cured with-
out being spoken about in plain language." You have
the testimony, gentlemen, of the Solicitor-General that
in this pamphlet there is no vulgarity of language and
no coarseness of expression. He puts it as strongly as a
counsel for the defence could possibly put it ; and therefore
if it is only spoken in plain language, without unnecessary
vulgarity or coarseness, we will deal with it, if you please,
as just one of those productions which you think it is right
should speak in plain terms of corporeal maladies, and ought
not to be dragged — utterly unfairly as it is dragged now —
within the reach of the criminal law in this country (for it is
only in this country that this subject is thought outside the
barrier of ordinary decent discussion : in any foreign
country — in France or Italy — all scientific men have full
liberty in discussions of this kind). Mr. Mill goes on :
All experience shows that the mass of mankind never
judge of moral questions for themselves, never see
anything to be right or wrong until they have been
frequently told it; and who tells them that they
have any duties in the matter in question, while they
keep within matrimonial limits? Who meets with the
smallest condemnation, or rather, who does not meet with
sympathy and benevolence, for any amount of evil which he
may have brought upon himself and those dependent on
him, by this species of incontinence ? While a man who is
intemperate in drink, is discountenanced and despised by all
who profess to be moral people, it is one of the chief grounds
made use of in appeals to the benevolent, that the appli-
cant has a large family and is unable to maintain them.
One cannot wonder that silence on this great department
of human duty should produce unconsciousness of moral ob-
ligations, when it produces oblivion of physical facts. That
it is possible to delay marriage, and to live in abstinence
while unmarried, most people are willing to allow ; but when
persons are once married, the idea, in this country, never
seems to enter any one's mind that having or not having a
family, or the number of which it shall consist, is amenable
to their own control. One would imagine that children
u^ere rained down upon married people, direct from heaven,
without their having art or part in the matter ; that it was

'13

really, as the common phrases have it, God^s will, and not
their own, which decided the numbers of their offspring."
That is the way John Stuart Mill puts the law, and presses
on all those who marry the duty of Hmiting their famiHes.
Professor Leone Levi, whom we find lecturing recently to
working men on their " Work and Pay," points out that " a
proper restraint in the matter of matrimony and prudence
as regards the increase of our families is necessary ; showing
that the prudence must be after marriage, since he is speak-
ing of the increase of families, and saying that we cannot
trust on so much wisdom on the part of the people," and so
we must turn to emigration. Clearly he thinks that true
wisdom on the part of the people," as he puts it, would lead
to prudence as regards the increase of families ; and he says,
as we cannot trust to so much wisdom on the part of the
people, " our only hope must lie in the vast fields of emigra-
tion." Mrs. Fawcett puts exactly the same thing, in words
whose meaning cannot be disputed. She had been writing
on pauperism, and had been showing that " no speculations
as to the industrial prospects of England are worth the
paper they are written on if they do not take into account
the probable future of pauperism.'' She says : " If, in the
future industrial competition of nations, England is to keep
either first or second in the field, she must devise some
means, not only of checking the growth of pauperism, but
of eradicating the disease from her social system. And
those who deal with this question of pauperism should
remember that it is not to be remedied by cheap food, by
reductions of taxation, or by economical administration in
the departments, or by new forms of government. Nothing
will permanently affect pauperism while the present reckless
increase of population continues. And nothing will be so
likely to check this increase as the imposition by the State
on parents of the whole responsibility of maintaining their
offspring." When Mrs. Fawcett says that you must check
population by making parents maintain their own offspring,
she necessarily means that if, after marriage, parents found
they had to maintain their own children, they would
find some means of checking the rapid increase of the
family. That same argument I might bring to you very
strongly from Mr. Montagu Cookson, who is on some points so
extremely clear, that I do not propose to read very much of
him, because I am inclined to think that the pages of a ma-
gazine are not exactly the medium which I myself should

114

choose for the discussion of a question of this kind. When
people wish to discuss questions of this kind, they should do
so in medical or physiological works. I think that in ordi-
nary magazines physiology and other kindred subjects should
not be mixed up with more general questions, and I urge
specially in regard to Knowlton that no one need buy his
book unless they desire to read it, and that every one who
buys it knows exactly what the character of the book is on
which he is spending his money. That is hardly so with
respect to a magazine of the ordinary character. I think pari:
of Mr. Montagu Cookson's article is far more plain-spoken
than I should myself have cared to put in the pages of an
ordinary magazine ; but that is, of course, a question for his
■own taste and not for me. He says he need not say more
to explain his meaning, which is perfectly true, for he had
said quite enough to explain his meaning very thoroughly.
Then he goes on : " Those who have followed me so far will
hardly need that I should add more by way of explaining
my meaning ; and I rejoice to think that there are not a
few who are familiar with the moral lesson deducible from
these remarks, and whose daily practice it has long since
served to shape." And he goes on to point out that many
may " Think the practical conclusion to which I point, /. e.
prudential restraint after marriage, wilder than anything-
Malthus ever dreamt, whilst others will regard it with pious
horror on moral or religious grounds. To the former I
would say it is premature to predict that any untried experi-
ment will fail until you have shown that the conditions of
its success are at variance either with the established facts
or with the ascertained laws. In the case before us, the
facts do not belie the conclusions, for, I repeat, there already
exists a school of moderation, based on the convictions here
stated, which boasts several disciples. I believe there would
be vastly more if the force of public opinion were brought
to bear upon the question. Of ascertained laws vfhich are
fatal to its success there is absolutely not a trace, except it be
the law of our own inclination, which, if in earnest, v/e can
mould as Vv^e choose, each strengthening each in the task.
At present, however, no one thinks of lifting a finger to
assist his neighbour in the matter, and as long as such per-
fect indifference prevails, and an impenetrable veil of mys-
tery is drawn over the whole subject, every man's secret will
perish with him, and the advance of the human race in this
all-important department of knowledge will, for want of the

IIS

power of transmission, be no more rapid than that of the
brutes. To those again who raise objections which appear
to them to have their root in morahty, as distinct from re-
vealed rehgion, I answer : — It would be interesting if it
were not melancholy, to observe the way in which, both in
writing and speaking, men are perpetually admitting the
material inconveniences due to an excess of population,
whilst they give the go-by to the obvious solution that the
numbers of children born after marriage should be limited
in the manner I have endeavoured to indicate." I ask you,
gentlemen, whether by vmting that an impenetrable veil of
mystery is drawn over the whole subject, and that every
man's secret'' perishes with him, whether Mr. Montagu Cook-
son does not thoroughly suggest to those who are well
acquainted with physiological details, that it would be well
that every man's secret should not perish v/ith them, but that
for the benefit of their neighbours they should transmit to
each other that which has been of benefit to themselves.
You find him saying that as landlords cannot make the cot-
tages large enough for the labourers, the labourers must limit
their families to their room. He says the limxitation of
the number of the family ought to be secured " by
obedience to natural laws which all may discover and
verify if they will, and that such limitation is as much the
duty of married persons as the observance of chastity is the
duty of those that are unmarried. One of the main wants
•of the day is, as I conceive, the formation of a sound public
opinion on this subject." He does not ask from married
people that chastity after marriage which he demands from
the unmarried. He tells them to discover natural laws, and
to apply them, and he says that such limitation is the morality
of married life. He says that one of the most important wants
of the day is the formation of a sound public opinion on
this subject. Taking that article, and that he says it is to be ^
after marriage that he wants the cottager to limit his family,
that it is after marriage he wants the hedger and the ditcher
to practise this duty, I ask you how his suggestions can be
carried out unless you publish a physiological treatise giving
those natural laws which cottagers and hedgers and ditchers
could not discover for themselves, however much Mr. Mon-
tagu Cookson may be able to do it ? How is it possible his
wishes can be carried out unless at alow price, in plain Saxon
English, you get these natural laws put forward whereby the
offspring can be Hmited after marriage ? I beheve that in

G 2

ii6

dealing with that point Mr. Bradlaugh will have something to
mention, because I believe Mr. Montagu Cookson wrote to Mn
Bradlaugh — when he found he was likely to be quoted in a
court of law — putting some limitations on the meaning of his
words which we do not find in his essay, an essay which is utterly
unguarded, and is couched in the strongest terms. I have
simply read the passages which give the counsel on this
point of Mr. Montagu Cookson, and I have not read
certain others which are more suggestive in their wording,
because I do not want to make any unpleasantness of
feeling in dealing with a subject which is a difficult one for
a woman to touch at all in a court of this kind. You have
got here to deal with this dilemma : that over-population
must be kept down, must be killed down, with misery ; or
that you must have delayed marriages, with personal and
social evils such as I have hinted at ; or that you must have
early marriages with limitation of families. That I conceive
is the dilemma with which my antagonists have to deal, and I
will go now to the end for which this book is put forward by
Dr. Knowlton. You will find on the sixth page some sen-
tences, which I will not read, if you will kindly look at the
book, commencing " In a social point of view." In the first
place we find it is there stated that "the families of the married
often increase more rapidly than a regard for the young beings
coming into the world or the happiness of those who gave
them birth " ought to permit. I will speak for a moment on
women^s health in connection with this subject, for to me
that is a very vital point in dealing with this book. We have
seen the effect on society of over-population ; we have not
seen the effect on the women themselves, for the premature
deaths which keep down the population do not save the
health of the mother, who is exhausted by the over-rapid
child-bearing. It may save some of the social effects of over-
population ; it does not save the unfortunate mothers whose
health is ruined, and you will find that put very plainly in
Dr. Knowlton's work, when he says the health of the mother
is very often sacrificed, and she is compelled to toil on
even at those times when Nature imperiously calls for some
relief from daily drudgery." Here is one point I shall want
to prove to you, more from the evidence of witnesses than
from a book. There is no question that amongst the
women of the poorer classes there is a vast amount of
suffering caused by over-rapid child-bearing, You get one
special class of disease, that every doctor vrould tell you

117

about, and called, in common parlance, among themselves,
" falling of the womb," which is merely the result of this
excessive child-bearing, which is caused by their being
compelled to go about among their famihes long before
they ought to do so, when health and reason demand a
certain amount of rest after child-bearing. I have often myself
seen a poor woman, a mother of a large family, standing
over the wash-tub three or four days after having borne a child,
and upon my representing to her the utter ruin to her health
which was involved in such a proceeding I would get the
reply : " What am I to do ? There is another mouth to feed;
the children are there and must be provided for, and I must
get about." Doctors tell you that you will very rarely find
women among the poor who are mothers of large families,
who do not suffer from a weakness of this kind, which is
entirely referrable to the fact that year after year, without any
intermission, they are in an almost continual condition of
pregnancy. Dr. Bull in his " Hints to Mothers " — which is a
book sold by Messrs. Smith, and seen on nearly every book-
stall, and about which there is no pretence of secrecy, for it
is nearly always to be seen standing side by side with Dr.
Chavasse's "Advice to a Wife" — Dr. Bull says : "It is scarcely
necessary to advert to the well-known fact that a woman
may conceive while nursing." It is thought by the
poor, and by many well-educated people too, who ought to
know better, that a woman by keeping a child at the breast
can check the likelihood of conception. No mistake is
more frequent or more fallacious than this, and Dr. Drysdale
and Miss Vickery will tell you that a number of diseases
result from over-lactation. It gives rise to a peculiar class
of diseases, but it does worse, as you will find from the
testimony of a man like Dr. Churchill, whose wide experi-
ence in these matters no one can dispute. He gives you
his opinion on one disease, and says " Among the many
causes of this disease rapid child-bearing and over-suckling
are the most frequent. The latter is done by the poor to
prevent a rapid increase of their family, which it does very
effectually when it gives rise to the disorder mentioned, but
at the expense of much suffering and loss of health to the
mother." That same point is dealt with by Chavasse, and
it will be spoken to by Dr. Drysdale and Miss Vickery, and
you will see that these poor women are so convinced of the
necessity of some check that in their ignorance they adopt
this injurious means. You cannot expect man and wife

ii8

to live as if divorced ; you cannot expect them to do so ;
and to have some check, therefore, poor women actually
resort to the fatal practice of nursing children for a year or
longer with the hope that by doing that they may keep off the
dreaded increase in the family which they desire to escape.
It is ruinous to the health of the mother, to the child at the
breast, and also to the health of the unborn child. Thus
are three human lives simply sacrificed to the ignorance
of the poor — the poor who, in their ignorance, struggle to fmd
some check — and yet we are forbidden to enlighten them, tO'
give them some means which would act as the check they"
need and yet would not harm them. It is not only amongst
the mothers of the artisan classes that you find this special
suffering ; you find it even amongst the wives of professional
men ; and here I need not urge upon you that one vast
source of suffering in the home is the almost continual ill-
health of the wife, whose health is so often broken down by
the almost annual increase of the family. I need not tell
you, because your own experience tells you, that a large num-
ber of injurious checks are not only used, but are constantly
talked about by married women for preventing the increase
of their famihes. And this would not be done if you did.
not deny to them that physical knowledge which it is said
to be immoral to give to them ; but, gentlemen, I think it is
far more immoral to force them into ill-health by withholding"
from them that knowledge which they need. Much of the
knowledge needed is given to the wealthier women who-
wish to have it. That edition of Chavasse which I have, I
gave six shillings for at Paddington railway station, and you .
may get the book much cheaper in paper covers for those who
can afford to pay one shilling or eighteen pence, and I know
of no reason why Messrs. Smith and Son can go to people
who can afford to pay is. 6d. and sell them without fear-
exactly the same knowledge which you say becomes obscene
when poor people pay sixpence for it* The knowledge
given by Chavasse is of the same character as that given by
Knowlton, and gives so much information that any intelli-
gent person would use it for the purpose of checking as w^ell
as of increasing the family. On the father I will not say what
is the effect of the yearly increase, because you yourselves
can judge of the struggle at home with an ever-growing,
family v/hile the salary does not grow in the same proportion^
and I will only say here that, since this prosecution has been
begun, one class of men especially have written to us begging

119

us to carry on this work. I am not now speaking of the very-
poor, but we have had a number of letters from country-
clergymen and town clergymen (who from their position
many people would expect to be prejudiced against my
co-defendant and myself) expressing pleasure that we have
had the courage to take this subject up and begging us to go
on with it because of the need they see for it. I put that
so because, with two clergymen in the witness box, it is well
that you should know that religious feeling is not against us
on this point, although many people would think it would
be in a discussion of this kind. There is another point as
to the health of the woman which Dr. Knowlton has put
somewhat strongly ; he urges that " many women are so con-
stituted that they cannot give birth to healthy, and some-
times not to living, children. Is it desirable, is it moral,
that such women should become pregnant ? Yet this is con-
tinually the case.'^ I am still reading from page 6 of
Knowlton. There is no doubt that many men and women
have diseases of the constitution, have, say madness or con-
sumption, in the family, with many other kinds of hereditary
diseases, and that these people will marry. I ask you,
gentlemen, whether it is moral that these people should be
allowed to marry, to bring into the world children who will
be the inheritors of their own diseases ? Yet it is hard to
say that because there is a trace of madness in the family,
all the members of that family should be forbidden marriage.
If they do marry a sad experience often shows that the dis-
eases lying dormant in the parent break out in the child, and
cause much misery and suffering. Had you not better teach
that they may have the comfort of home, the comfort of
married life, but that they must, remembering that they
might transmit diseases, keep such restraints over themselves
as should prevent them from bringing children into the
world to inherit the diseases from which their own families
have suffered? Then there are the other cases referred to by
Knowlton — cases where the delivery of a living child is im-
possible, and may even have been proved impossible. Here
I am going to put a point to you which may astonish you as
much as it did myself Dr. Fleetwood Churchill, in dealing
with "the diseases of women" (I quote from the fifth
edition), points out that there are many cases where, from
previous experience, they know that a woman cannot give
birth to a living child. You will easily understand that there
may be cases of that kind which could not be discovered

I20

before marriage, or even until the first child was brought into
the world. A large number of cases are given here where the
doctors found it was impossible for a mother to give birth
to a living child. Instead of telling the mother that it was
utterly immoral to conceive a child which could never be
born alive, Dr. Churchill comes to the conclusion that where
they had once found out that a woman could not be delivered
of a living child, it was better to induce premature labour, or to
induce abortion at an early stage. I must put it to you,
that it is most immoral to allow a woman to go on conceiving
children that she will never be able to bring into the world —
for I hold that to destroy life, after it once lives, is the most
immoral doctrine that can be put forward ; and that when
a doctor goes to a man and tells him that his v/ife can never
bear a living child, he ought to be able also to impart
to him such physiological instruction as should prevent
the recurrence of the conception in future. It can never
be right to deliberately give life to a child who
can never, as you know, live to the birth — to give a
life which you are beforehand determined to destroy.
It seems to me that an argument of that kind is the most
disgraceful that can be put forward. If you are going to
talk about circulating knowledge which makes unchastity
safe, I ask you which is the most likely to cause unchastity —
to allow such principles as these to be disseminated abroad,
or to allow the publication of such checks as are advocated
by Dr. Knowlton ? Surely the latter are far less likely to do
harm, and if knowledge of the ease with which the con-
sequences of unchastity may be warded off is injurious to
public morality, then how can you permit a book to be circu-
lated which, as Dr. Churchill's does, gives a detailed account
of the fashion in which abortion may be induced— means of
which any woman, wicked enough to use them, misht most
easily avail herself? Another point v/orthy your considera-
tion is taken from the Obstetrical Journal^ which is sold at
all the railway bookstalls at is. 6d., and is published by
Messrs. Churchill, the great medical booksellers of Bur-
lington Street — a journal which is illustrated, and being so,
when the jury see it, I think they will say it is far more
likely to spread unchastity than is Knowlton's work. It
says there, that in a case where it was found necessary to
perform the Caesarian section on a woman, while absorbed
in this operation it did not occur to anyone of us to so treat
the fallopian tubes as to prevent a future conception." If

121

it is right for one doctor to go through that operation to
prevent conception in a married woman, surely it is not
wrong in another doctor to show a woman how the concep-
tion of too many children can be prevented. I must urge
upon you that if you are going to pass a censure on me, and
say that it is wrong and immoral to teach married women
how to prevent conception, you really ought to take steps
to pass a far stronger censure in cases where people are
induced to conceive children which it is deliberately pro-
posed to murder on bringing them into the world. I would
ask the jury to make a particular note of that, and to re-
member it in dealing with their verdict. In other cases the
doctor warns the father that the mother's health is so bad
that the birth of another child is likely to kill her. What
can you do ? You cannot expect man and wife to live on
as if divorced. What happens? Another child "comes," and
the woman dies. Is it immoral to teach how the wife may
live and yet not be divorced from her husband ? There is
another class of cases so often known that I need not dv/ell
on them. You do not expect a young man to live an abso-
lutely celibate life after marriage. If he does not, what
happens ? You get a strong man and a delicate woman.
That which is necessary to the health of the man is fatal to
the health of the woman. There are too many instances
where the home is unhappy because the husband complains
of the " coldness " of the wife, but this coldness is often not
from lack of love, it comes simply from physical exhaustion.
The consequence is that the man finds a kind of supple-
ment to the home which is simply destructive of everything
we wish to see in family life. I urge that it is not fair to
bring against us a charge of obscenity, when you find that v\^e
are doing what we can to show men and women how to
remain thoroughly loyal to each other without injury to
the health of either, and so to enable one man and
one woman to be thoroughly true to each other through-
out the whole of their married life. We find that
Dr. Knowlton puts forward these checks as '^the only
moral restraint to population " (p. 5) with which he is ac-
quainted, but that would not prevent another doctor from
presenting checks which are better than Dr. Knowlton's.
It is for that that I am so anxious to gain a verdict. You
will find a discussion going on in France as to these checks,
and as to their effects on the health of the married, and it
is a vital point to the happiness of the community that

122

doctors should be allowed to express their thoughts on this
subject without the fear of a criminal prosecution, and that
they should not be liable to be told that they were endea-
vouring to promote promiscuous intercourse between the
sexes. That, gentlemen, is the first chapter of the book
which is here incriminated, and I will ask you whether, on
looking through that chapter, there is one single word which
bears out the contention raised yesterday morning by the
prosecution? Is there one word which shows that the
writer is using the v/ord marriage as the cover for something
vv^orse ? Can you, from the beginning to the end of that
chapter, honestly and fairly say that this is a cloak of phy-
siology, this is a pretence of morality, put on to cover an
immoral purpose, such as w^e are here charged with ? That
is dealing vvdth the whole chapter ; and I may again inquire,
while I thoroughly bear in mind the ruling of my lord of yes-
terday, that you are not obliged to find obscenity in every
page ; yet, I think, my lord, I may fairly put it that some intent
ought to be discoverable from this chapter, something which
should lead you to think that the writer's purpose was aa
immoral one, for it seems unfair to brand a book as immoral,
unless it is so in intent and in purpose.

The Lord Chief Justice : Read by itself it might be
an introduction to a Malthusian treatise.

Mrs. Besant : Just so, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : The only way in which this
chapter can be attacked is, by saying what is the conclu-
sions to w^hich it is intended to lead up, and then, from that
conclusion, it may be argued that, although in form and
prima facie it is perfectly moral, yet that, from the conclu-
sions it is intended to lead up to, a different construction
might be put upon it. That was the argument of the Soli-
citor-General yesterday, and it is the only way in which this
first chapter can be taken to mean anything else than what it
says. Judging from what it says, it might be regarded as
perfectly honest and perfectly pure. Take it by itself, and
there is not a word in it which could be construed into any
impropriety of expression or thought.

Mrs. Besant : There are, on the contrary, my lord, a
great many expressions which show a very earnest mind.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is perfectly open for you
to argue that to the jury.

Mrs. Besant : I do not propose, gentlemen, to read to
you any more of this chapter.

123

The Lord Chief Justice : Will you not read the con- |
eluding paragraph to the jury?

Mrs. Besant : I feared, my lord, to take up more of the
time of the Court than your lordship might think necessary
for the proving of my case, and I did not wish to try j
too severely the kindness and patience shown me by the I
Court.

The Lord Chief Justice : The paragraph is very im- j
portant, it seems to me, as touching the purpose of the
pamphlet.

Mrs. Besant : Thank you, my lord ; I will, then, gentle-
men, just read the last paragraph of the chapter. Inas- \
much, then, as the scruples of incurring heavy responsibili- |
ties deter from forming moral connections, and encourage \
intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge v/hich enables
man to limit the number of his offspring would, in the pre- ;
sent state of things, save much mihappiness, and prevent j
many crimes. Young persons, sincerely attached to each j
other, and who might wish to marry, would marry early, |
merely resolving not to become parents until prudence per- j
mitted it. The young man, instead of solitary toil and j
dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance of j
her he had chosen as his companion ; and the best years .1
of life, whose pleasures never return, would not be squan- \
dered in riot, nor lost through mortification." Is that
written, gentlemen, with intent to deprave and corrupt?

The Court here adjourned for lunch. j
Upon re-assembling, Mrs. Besant continued : I take up j
the subject at the beginning of the second chapter, and it is
only the first and the second paragraphs with which I pro- \
pose to deal. The whole of the remainder of the chapter I j
propose to leave to my co-defendant, for I understand that j
any defence of his which is effectual v/ill practically, if not j
quite in legal strictness, be taken to cover myself, and, with ^
your lordship's permission and the consent of the jury, I
think it would be pleasanter for all of us that I did not go \
through the whole of the details in this chapter. I
The Lord Chief Justice made a motion of assent. 1
Mrs. Besant : It will be pleasanter to let it come from my j
co-defendant, Mr. Bradlaugh, than from myself, so I will only \
take the first paragraphs of this chapter. I have only taken
the liberty of putting it so, that one might not be thought to
be shirking one's duty in the matter. It will be fully dealt
with by my co-defendant. I go on then with page 9 of the j

124

pamphlet and the first two paragraphs of Chapter II. I will
take the paragraphs separately. Dr. Knowlton says : " I
hold the following to be important and undeniable truths.
That every man has a natural right both to receive and convey
a knowledge of all the facts and discoveries of every art and
science, excepting only such as may be secured to some par-
ticular person or persons by copyright or patent. That a
physical truth, in its general effects, cannot be a moral evil.
That no fact in physics or in morals ought to be concealed
from the inquiring mind." The first half-dozen lines are not
worth troubling you with, but I will take that a physical
truth cannot be a moral evil," and I may say that I thoroughly
and entirely endorse that; that I hold that no physical
knowledge, properly taught and properly understood, can for
one moment be taken to be a moral evil ; and I think here I
may, perhaps, take leave to point out that the case in which
your lordship and your learned brethren gave judgment — the
case of the Queen v. Hicklin — in that case there were
no physiological truths dealt with at all. In fact, that case
has really no bearing of any kind on this present case, and
has nothing in common with it. There is no kind of con-
nection between a case where obscene matter is put forward,
with the admission that it is obscene — matter that cannot be
any good ; because questions as to certain crimes can never
be supposed to convey knowledge that may be useful to
either man, woman, or child, and the questions there are all
of the most — I was going to say — of the most disgusting cha-
racter, without conveying one scrap of knowledge that could
possibly be useful to any one, and it stands on an entirely
different footing to the case where, rightly or wrongly, a pre-
tence of medical knowledge or instruction is put forward. I
say a '^pretence," because it is said by the prosecution that
it is only a pretence, and supposing it were so, nothing in
the Queen zk Hicklin would touch this, because, in
that case, there was no pretence made of any sort that
knowledge useful to the community was sought to
be given by the publication. (The Lord Chief
Justice nodded assentingly.) Knowlton points out that
no physical truth can be a moral evil. It is a point
vital to me in this, that you should recognise the fact
that no physical truth is in itself indecent. I do not mean
that under cover of a physical fact indecent suggestions
may not be made. I am bound to admit that they may be
made under cover of physical knowledge, but I contend

125

that in itself no physical fact is an indecent fact. I will put it
that that is especially and strongly shown by the whole action
of our present Government. And speaking of govern-
ments, I do not mean, in any fashion, to raise a question of
the particular Government with which my prosecutors are
connected, or even for one moment to insinuate that the
matter of party may lend a spirit of maliciousness to this
prosecution. In the question of physiology, Whig, Tory,
or Radical Government would, I think, act alike, in that of
which I am going to speak. You will remember that the
learned Solicitor-General said, that if this book were pub-
lished in a medical room, or sold to medical students, it
would not be indecent, but he contended it was obscene
because it might be sold to boys and girls in the public
streets, and he contended that practically a book, which to
a medical man is a useful book, a decent book, a moral
book, would become utterly obscene and utterly indecent
the moment it was pubUshed in a girls' school, and placed
in the hands of girls and boys. Now that, gentlemen, is a
very important point. For I hold in my hand the directory
authorised by the Government (and for the moment I
remind you that the Solicitor-General, being a law officer of
the Crown, may fairly be said to be bound by the ac^s of
his Government). You will find, that at the present moment,
the Tory Government — and I mean nothing here as against
the Tory Government, for they are carrying on exactly
the same system that was carried on by the Govern-
ment preceding — in the directory that I hold here — •
this directory, my lord, is revised to August, 1873, and
is the 28th edition, with regulations for establishing
and conducting science schools and classes, and it is
issued by the Science and Art Department, the Committee
of the Council at South Kensington — it is printed by
Eyre and Spottiswoode, whom you well know, gentlemen, as
the Queen's printers, the authorised printers of blue books
and Acts of Parliament, so that it comes before you with
the whole authority that a Government can give to any pub-
lication. You will find that they issue a list of books in
which they examine the young boys and young girls who
present themselves for examination. in the science classes in
connection with South Kensington, and your lordship and
the jury will be thoroughly well aware that these classes are
not intended for adult men and women, but are intended
for young boys and girls ; and boys and girls, under the age

126

of sixteen years of age, are in the habit of attending them,
and in the habit of going up for examination ; and you will
find in the examination for honours, that candidates will be ex-
amined in any subject treated of in the standard English
works upon physiology, such as Carpenter's Principles of
Human Physiology,^' Marshall's Outlines of Human and
Comparative Physiology," &c. You will fmd the Govern-
ment putting into the hands of young girls, under the
age of sixteen, as text-books : " Lessons in Elementary
Physiology," by Huxley, "Human Physiology," by Carpenter,
a " Handbook in Physiology," by Kirke, and another
one by Marshall, in each of which they may be examined.
Then in the syllabus, they are told that the knowledge of
the candidates respecting anatomy and physiology v/ill " be
expected to be real and not mere book work," and that the
candidates should be able to study the bones of the human
skeleton, and also the soft parts, as well as the bones, of the
higher domestic animals ; and you will find that it is very
carefully put forward that they be examined on the whole
of the system of reproduction, that they are to be thoroughly
well acquainted with the structures and character of the
male and female organs of reproduction, that they are to
know (I will not trouble you here with the technical terms)
the whole mode of development of the unborn being,
and that right through they ?cre to be prepared to put dov/n
in answers to an examination not only what Knowlton
gives, but — in addition to that which is given by Knowlton as
necessary for the point of which he treats — a v/hole mass of
technical and of detailed physiological instruction, not about
one sex alone; and young girls of thirteen, fourteen, and
fifteen, are by order of the Government instructed in
every detail of the male organs of generation from beginning
to end, not one point left out, and it is not dealt with in
Carpenter and Kirke in the dry fashion in which Dr. Knowlton
deals v/ith it — mere dry physiological details ; it is
dealt with, as you will see when my co-defendant speaks, in
language which is calculated to arouse passion, because,
while Knowlton carefully avoids one syllable which gives
the outward form, the attraction which might be supposed
to rouse passion ; while, for instance, he speaks of a girl
gaining "a more womanly appearance," and says nothing
more, you will find in Carpenter's, and in Kirke's books,
put into the hands of children, at the express sanction of the
Government, of which the Solicitor-General is an officer,

127

a detailed description of the attractive results of the
development of a girl's form, going through every detail in a
style that I should scarcely think it wise to put into the
hands of those so young, and also speaking of the attractive
influence these changes have on the opposite sex. By the
authority of the Government these things are put into the
hands of young girls and boys, and I ask you with what
kind of decency is it that the Solicitor-General, an officer of
the Government which authorises a list of books of that
kind, comes here to prosecute us for putting into the hands
of people and issuing a book, beside which their own books
are, if physiology is obscene and if there is any measure in
obscenity, immeasurably more obscene than the one for
which I plead to-day? We can bring you the very people
who have received these books as prizes for studies under
the Government examinations. We can bring you a boy
who received Carpenter's " Human Physiology and not
only does Carpenter deal with the question in a manner
beside which our book is the utmost extreme of delicacy, but
Carpenter is illustrated with a number of plates, and when
the jury see them — if they have not already dealt with the
subject before — they will be astonished that with the autho-
rity of the Government such books are put into the hands
of young boys and girls. For myself, I do not object that
this should be done, but I do object that the Solicitor-General
should say to you that this book circulated in a girls' school
would be obscene, because if so it would be hardly con-
sistent that such books as those I have mentioned should be
placed in the hands of boys and girls under Government
authority, and that, then, he should come here and try to
rouse your virtuous indignation to pronounce as obscene
that for which we plead.

The Lord Chief Justice : What classes do you mean ?

Mrs. Besant : The school and classes of science now
held, my lord, at South Kensington, and the Government
put forward a number of books which they require as text-
books for the children to be examined in.

Mr. Bradlaugi-i : In the larger directory, under the head
of physiology, and in the small one, the instruction for the
reproductive organs.

Mrs. Besant : That is a point which is most important,
because one would not like to accuse the Solicitor-General
of acting an indignation before you that he did not
thoroughly feel. We can only suppose, for a moment, that

128

he was utterly ignorant that the Government had done the
very thing which he characterised as obscene, for I am
sure all ties of party, if nothing else, would prevent a gen-
tleman in open court from characterising the action of his
colleagues in office as actions which were thoroughly obscene,
and ought to be indicted at common law. I will claim that
if you bring in a verdict against us it will only be fair that
you should also sit in judgment upon my Lord Beaconsfield,
my Lord Salisbury, and my Lord Derby, and that they
should hold the same position we hold in court to-day, to answer
for circulating books which are distinctly obscene, which we
find them putting into the hands of young girls ; and if you
are going to fine us, or imprison us, or if you are going to
give a verdict which shall make it the duty of the learned
judge to sentence us to fine or imprisonment, you will re-
member that we have taken no steps to circulate these
books in girls' schools at all ; we have simply treated them
in the ordinary way, with no special pressure, and have
never, as the Government has done, issued special Hsts
and offered special rewards for the preparing of young girls
in them ; we have made a point of putting it to married
people, while the Government makes a point of putting it
to young unmarried girls scarcely out of their childhood.
And I hold so thoroughly that the Government is right
in putting that information in the hands of boys and girls
(and I am speaking to you here as the mother of a
daughter for whose education you must at least suppose I
have some care and some interest), that I say deliberately to
you, as mother of a daughter whom I love, that I believe it will
tend to her happiness in her future, as well as to her health,
that she shall not have made to her that kind of mystery
about sexual functions that every man and woman must
know sooner or later ; that I feel, with Dr. Acton, that it is
better to give instruction honestly, decently, and carefully,
than to allow it to be thrown into children by their experience
of the world (possibly in a bad and evil way), and I put it
distinctly that the Government is doing a service to the
coming generation when it places in the hands of young
boys and girls the exact physiological facts which we are seek-
ing to spread among adults to-day. And further I put it that
wlien this Government teaching has had its full course for a
generation, this work of Knowlton's will not be wanted any
longer. Unfortunately, the adults of the present time have
not had the advantage of the instruction which the Government

129

is now giving to the young : when the young have been in-
structed in Carpenter, Kirke, and in other books of physi-
ology, this Httle pamphlet will not be needed, because every
scrap of information which is found in it, every line which
you can point out as covering any sort of words which you
may think to be obscene, will, as you will find from my co-
defendant's speech, have been thoroughly covered by words
put into the hands of children by the Government, and when
they have been trained in this fashion there will be no need
to circulate among them that for which we are now indicted.
It is only because former Governments have not thought it
their duty to circulate physiological knowledge that we are
condemned for doing it ; it would be far better that people
should gain that information from the mouths of professors
in the schools and classes of science. Some 20 or 30 years
hence Knowlton will no longer be required ; Government
will have taken his position, and will have taught all he
teaches, and when the coming generation have had the
advantage of that training from men selected by the
Government, then will there be no need to give them the
physical truths which Knowlton wrote for a generation even
more ignorant than the present. Further, not only is a
physical truth no moral evil, but I will put it yet more broadly
that no physical description in any fashion tends to arouse
impure thoughts ; in fact, that it has exactly the opposite
effect. Physiological knowledge tends to inspire so deep a
reverence for the marvellous way in which Nature acts, for
the fashion in which she evolves from the apparently most un-
likely materials the most unexpected results, that physio-
logical knowledge and teaching inspire a feeling for Nature
of reverence so deep and intense that there is no room left
for a coarse or an impure thought to enter into connection
with the matter. There has been no coarseness attached
to the reproductive system spread throughout the vegetable
kingdom ; and if less mystery were made about the matter,
if children were taught that, above all physical functions,
they were bound to reverence and think carefully of, and
dissever from every element of indecency, that power
whereby Nature crowns them with the power of giving new
life — if you gave them information such as that, you would
do away with the whole suggestion of indecency which
hangs around it now. If, for a moment, you will think of
the point with which I am dealing, you will acknowledge
that in no sense can physiological knowledge be treated as

I30

obscene. Think, for a moment, that every doctor who*
comes into your homes in time of trial or sickness is a man
to whom every physiological detail of the frame is as.
familiar as possible : to a scientific man, or a medical man,,
there is no difference between one part of the body and
another. There is no more thought of indecency in the
mind of the student connected with the reproductive
organs than is connected with the brain. It is simply that
the course of habit has thrown over them a stigma of inde-
cency which it is ours to try to remove by taking away that
cover of ignorance which has covered them with curiosity.
You find Dr. Acton pleading for that knowledge in lan-
guage and expression which I cannot pretend to rival. He
says that the whole attraction of impure literature simply
gains its strength from the fact that people make
a parade of concealment about the functions of
Nature, thus giving them a factitious allurement that
they never would have if they had been dealt with in a.
a proper manner. So far from a book of this kind raising
sexual passions, nothing can show more utter ignorance of
mankind than to pretend that it were possible it should dO'
so. If you were going to sit down to a special breakfast or
dinner — and, if I were speaking within the confines of the
city, I might say to a Lord Mayor's dinner, for you as-
citizens might have been there — you would not choose
to stimulate your appetite with a dry physiological treatise
on the digestive organs. It is very much the same with phy-^
siological treatises of the other kind. No man with an
impure mind, who wants to rouse sexual passion, whO'
wants in any way to give reins to his passion, will go care-
fully through dry details which, by the kind of thought they
give, and by awakening the brain, utterly destroy all possi-
bility of passion, as I am sure your own experience will
tell you amongst medical men who make these things their
study. Passing then from that, I will take the following para-
graph : Some,'' Dr. Knowlton says, " may make a misuse
of knowledge ; but that is their fault, and it is not right that
one person should be deprived of knowledge, of spirits, of
razors, or of anything else which is harmless in itself, and
may be useful to him, because another may misuse it.'' That
point, my lord, is a vital one in this instance, because it is
urged, and has been urged in this presence, and urged very
strongly outside the court (though I have no right to intro-
duce that here) ; it has been urged here by the learned

131 I

Solicitor-General that v\4iile this pamphlet, if confined to
married people, might do no harm, the danger of the pam- ,
•phlet is that, while addressed to married people, amongst j
whom the knowledge is not injurious, it may fall into the |
hands of young people, and people who are unmarried, and ,\
may point out to young women especially (for young men 1
do not seem to be taken into consideration on matters of \
this kind ; it is apparently allowed that they may be as fast i
or as objectionable as they choose) — it has been urged that
young women of bad character really, but of good character \
outwardly, may hnd that they may become safely unchaste by the j
knowledge which is given to them by Know] ton. I have i
found very great stress laid upon that by the Solicitor- ,
General, for he not only assured us that in publishing this j
pamphlet our intention was to destroy married life, and to i
promote promiscuous intercourse, and to make unchastity \
safe — he not only did us the honour to suppose that v/e should I
place ourselves in this dangerous position for nothing except I
for the pleasure of corrupting young girls — not only did he say |
that was our intent, but also that the book was specially ;
calculated to point out to unmarried females the way in ;
which they could be unchaste v/ithout the danger of dis-
covery, which might otherwise arise. Now, for a moment, I
let me say that the misuse of knowledge does not make the
knowledge bad ; using knowledge wrongly does not make ]
the knowledge obscene ; the knowledge remains the same j
Vv^hether it be used or abused, and the fault of the misuse i
does not lie with the giver of the knowledge, it lies with the i
person who abuses the knowledge. I will lay that down as |
a principle which none will venture to dispute. Suppose ^
you say that a knov/ledge of poisons enables the person -
w^ho obtains it secretly to kill another, or to poison a fa^iiily \
Ynth a safety which he might not secure were it not for the |
knowledge, would you, because one person might sooner or j
later poison his neighbour, venture to say that a botanical ^
book which gave all the properties of plants and included \
poisons, and which was found extremely useful in a medical ^
sense — would you say that was a book calculated to injure ^
the morals of society because it gave that necessary infor- ^ ;
mation, and at the same time enabled some one person to j
obtain knowledge which enabled him to administer a poison |
which was not discoverable by medical analysis ? My lord
pointed out to the learned Solicitor-General, I thought very ,]
fairly — it struck me as a very just point to be put by the

I 2

132

judge — he pointed out that in dealing with the word
^' obscene " it was not in any fashion necessary that the book
should in itself contain language obscene and coarse ; on the
contrary, he stated that you might, under the meaning of such an
indictment as this, include words which would be calculated
to deprave the morals of society, and that it was not merely
whether the book was obscene in the common sense of the
term, but whether its tendency was to vitiate public morality.
And while for a moment that might be thought to be a re-
mark which might have been directed somewhat unfavour-
ably upon my co-defendant and myself, I yet so thoroughly
felt that the learned judge was raising a point which ought to
be put before you, that I felt almost grateful to him — if one
could be grateful for a momentary disadvantage — for having
raised the point. I think, however, that the point I put to
you about a botanical treatise exactly covers the contention
raised by the learned judge, for no one would pretend that
the knowledge of poisons in a botanical book ought to be
withheld from the public on the ground that that knowledge
might tend to harm public morals by giving to already
vicious people the knowledge that they might turn to a bad
purpose. That is a point which I will take leave to submit
to the learned judge and to the jury as clearly bearing on
this case. And take that part to which I referred as dealt with
in Churchill's " Diseases of Women," where knowledge as
to the procuring abortion is given. It might be urged that
that gave a power of harm, but even then you cannot limit
medical thought and medical science by this argument,
that people of impure and obscene minds may put a bad
use on the knowledge which is given. In all knowledge you
must get an increased power of harm as well as of good.
It is the very condition of knowledge that you have the
knowledge of good and evil side by side. You cannot say
you will have the one thing without the other; that
is entirely beyond your choice, that you cannot have;
you must have the knowledge, and with the knowledge
of good must necessarily, unfortunately, come also the
knowledge of the abuse of what is good, that may
fairly be taken as evil. And I put it to you that the
argument against Knowlton because Knowlton may be
misused is an argument which, if generally applied, would
forbid any information to be published, and would make
the only virtue of society consist in the utter ignorance
of all its members. Take any case you like. Take knives.

133

for instance ; knives are sold, not for the purpose of cutting
people's throats ; but, if you take the case of the sailors round
the docks in Eastern London, you will find that every man
there carries a clasp-knife in his pocket, and that it is very com-
mon for cases of stabbing to arise. The men do not carry the
knives to stab their fellows with, they carry them to cut the
rigging, among which their work lies, and they are very handy
in that capacity ; but you find cases of stabbing arise with
far greater frequency than they otherwise would, because the
means of stabbing are ready in the pockets of the men whose
passions are aroused. Are you going to forbid the use of
knives among the sailors because some of them use their
knives for the bad purpose of stabbing instead of for the
good purpose of cutting the rigging of the vessels ? Are you
going to forbid the use of guns because a poacher may
misuse one to shoot a gamekeeper instead of using it for a
legitimate purpose ? Do you mean to argue that taking the
licence off guns is wrong because it enables more people to
carry them ? Are you going to argue that ropes ought not
to be sold in the public streets because a rope can be bought
for 6d., and that that rope can be used by a murderer to
hang his victim, and that you must not sell it because a
murderer will find it so easy to buy a rope ? Look at lucifer
matches. Fifty years ago, when lucifer matches were less
common than they are now, it might have been urged that
you should not sell lucifer matches among farm labourers
because it would be so easy to set fire to farmers' ricks with
them. With the old flint and steel it was not so easy to
fire a rick as it is with lucifer matches, and clearly, therefore,
you must not permit them amongst the agricultural population,
because you put a power to injure into their hands that they
would not possess if they kept to the old flint and steel.
Gentlemen, that argument would never have been brought
before you if it had not been that this is not a fair prosecu-
tion at all. This is simply a trumped up and maHcious
prosecution. This book has been in circulation for forty
years, and now private spite and private malice have dragged
it forward from the obscurity of the very small circulation which
it had, and has given it a circulation of an enormous extent,
which, otherwise, it never would have had. This prosecu-
tion has been made purely and distinctly out of private and
party spite, and those who conduct the case are compelled
to make up ridiculous arguments of this kind, and to read
long quotations, in order to fill up the time for which they feel

134

compelled to speak to the jury. We have heard for this reason
the whole of the preface on which I should almost be ready to
rest my defence, and of which practically I am following out
the lines. They talk of the harm which may ensue to one
or two people, and so dr^g you into the belief of cor-
ruption that has no existence in the ^ book, and was
never in the minds of the people who published
it. You are asked to prevent the circulation of this
book because women and others may abuse the know-
ledge there given. The circulation of this book, if I may
judge in any fashion from my own personal experience, is
valued by poor men and women in all parts of the country
(and I can't help remembering that the editor of the Times
newspaper said that he judged the e ^ling of the country by
the state of his letter bag in the morning). If the remark
of the editor of the Times may be taken as a proof of the
feeling of the country, then what you are asked to do is
nothing less than to prevent the circulation of a book
that may bring comfort to thousands of English homes,
because one woman here and there may abuse the know-
ledge which it contains. Why, the knowledge is given in a
variety of ways, as I shall be compelled to show you before
I sit dov/n. The very knowledge given in Knowlton's book
is given in a book practically authorized by Government ;
I am referring to the report under the Royal Commission
on the working of the Contagious Diseases' Acts, and you will
find presently that the knowledge most objected to in Knowlton
is given there, and it is sold by Messrs Longman, who are
not medical publishers, at the price of one shilling. I v/ill
only now say that that is a book which, from its very title
vrould attract those by whom the knowledge would
be most likely to be misused. I put it to you, is it
likely that this knowledge would increase unchastity
among women? If you read the appendix — and I
may say, though we have printed the appendix, we do not
know who wrote it. We have printed it because it formed
part of the book which was prosecuted before ; and we felt
bound to do so, in order to thoroughly challenge the
verdict of the jury upon it — in the appendix you will find
the argument I am alluding to very clearly put forward.
Who this is v/ritten by, as I have said, I can't tell; but it
was published in the columns of the Bosto?i Investigator.
If you will carefully glance over it, it will save your time,
and I will not read it through, as I do not want to weary

135

you. You will see that the objection put forward by some
against diffusing the knowledge contained in the book is
the fear that it would increase illegal connections ; and you
will clearly remember that I put it to you this morning that
the knowledge would have exactly a contrary effect, and it
is here put that it is "an outrageous slander" to contend that
Avomen are preserved in chastity from the fear of the conse-
quences that may result from the contrary. In this English
court of justice need I argue for one single moment
that English women are not only kept chaste from the
fear of becoming mothers? To do that would be to
insult your common-sense and to waste your time. I am
sure you feel with me that the chastity of English
women is maintained by a feehng purer and nobler than
the mere fear of the shame and disgrace that might ensue
from a motherhood which was unsanctioned by the law.
The fact is, that anyone who could misuse the knowledge
that is given here, is so far gone already that there is very
little to gain by keeping this knowledge from her. If a
woman has been so carried away by passion as to desire the
book for purposes of passion, she will not be pushed any
further by the possession of this knowledge. Fear, as you
know too well, does not keep women chaste, and the only
effect the book could have on a woman who, for one
moment, contemplated the consequences which are spoken
of by the prosecution, would be to dissuade her from her
passion. The fact that the woman had the patience to wade
through dry physiological details, to make the preparation
that is in this book contemplated, shov/s that it is no loriger
.a question of passion carrying her away, but a quiet and
steady determination to go on the v/rong path, which no
amount of persuasion would keep her back from. If you
are going to say that the mothers of England who seek for
this knowledge, that those who plead to me to fight this
question for them, are to be kept in ignorance because
one woman here and there, already unchaste in thought,
may become unchaste in act, I say you are sacrificing the
many scarcely even for the benefit of the few. You are
injuring the great majority of decent, modest, respectable
Y/omen, who desire to have this knowledge, for the sake of
one here and there whom no care on our part can prevent
from getting the knowledge she desires. Do not think you
can stop the knowledge by stopping this book. There are
plenty of books, unfortunately, of a very different character,

136

from whlcTi those who desire to be unchaste can gain their
knowledge. This book will not help them, for Knowltoa
warns them too sternly against the evils of unchastity He
tells them too much of the dangers that result from un^
chastity, too much of the dangers that come from excess.
Put the book into the hands of man or woman who is
known to be running wild in this matter, and you will find
that the dangers pointed out in the book will frighten them
back and destroy the charm of the temptations which they
feels. You will never do harm with a book like that ; there
are too many books to which they may turn on the matter for
them to go to a dry book like Knowlton's. I put it to
you now, as I do not propose to carry on this chapter
further, that it is the mothers of famiHes, as a matter of fact,
who express so keen an interest in this book ; and if we had
been so fortunate, as naturally we have not been, as to have
had the pleasure of seeing any of you, or the learned judge,
at any of the meetings which have been held on the sub-
ject, you would have marked one very curious point — that
the whole audience, except the very smallest minority, was.
composed of the rather more than middle-aged, somewhat hard-
featured, men and women, who certainly would not have
been drawn there from any feeling of prurient curiosity, but
were simply drawn there by feeling the pressure of their need
to know something more than they did at the present time,
to learn how they might preserve their children from the
sufferings they had themselves undergone. If it were ini
any degree admissible — and I do not think it is — I believe
that the learned judge would feel it his duty to stop me if I
brought here in evidence a large mass of letters from women
of all classes which I have received : as a mere point of
law I might read them one after another, but I think, to do
that would be to shelter myself under a point of law which
it would not be fair to raise ; for though the learned judge
said yesterday that he could not prevent my learning a
quotation by heart, and reciting it as part of my speech,
and therefore could not prevent me from reading, yet I da
not want to weary either the judge or the jury with any
unfair amount of matter of that kind. I will therefore,
only put it to you shortly that amongst these letters, some of
them of the most touching character — letters, gentlemen,
that however much you might be prejudiced against me,
you could not hear me read without being touched by the
tone of their contents — letters of women who have had nine^^

137

ten, or twelve children, imploring me to save their
daughters from going through their own deplorable and
terrible experience. You would feel, had you seen these
letters, that even a man in the rank in the law of the
learned counsel for the prosecution, who stands up and
puts the taint of obscenity on my intent, simply insults your
common sense, and makes a verdict given in favour
of the prosecution an entire impossibility to be given con-
sistently with your conscience. You will find a mass of
letters coming from those who have had this book in early
life, and who have experienced the benefits of the work.
One I have particularly in my mind at the present moment^
from a certain station-master in Scotland, who says that his
wife, almost dying after her last confinement, the whole future
of their lives looked black and gloomy. Some mere chance
threw this 6d. pamphlet into their hands, when it was pub-
lished by James Watson. He tells how they read the book;
how they acted upon it; how his wife grew strong and
healthy, and how, at the present time, years afterwards, they
are looking forward to an addition to their family with a
pleasure they would never have been able to experience had
they not had this book. You may think that in a matter of
this kind, I somewhat overdraw it, and that I lay too much
stress on a mere 6d. pamphlet, but if you knew the feeling
about it, the earnestness, the intensity with which men and
women look upon this question, you would not wonder at my
zeal. Those who read a book for the sake of the impurity
contained in it will not find this pamphlet attractive to them.
It is circulated amongst those who need its teachings, and
it is those for whom I plead. I acknowledge that medical
periodicals may be read for a most impure purpose by
impure minds ; I acknowledge that the Lancet^ w^hich is
published at all the railway bookstalls, that the Medical
Observer, which is sold on the Metropolitan Railway, I
acknowledge that all these works may be read for impure
purposes by impure minds ; but that is no reason why this^
book, or those journals, should be suppressed, because the
impure gets from them the knowledge which he would certainly
get in some other way if he did not get it through these.
That is no reason why earnest and respectable people
should not obtain the knowledge which may contribute to
their married happiness. The rest of this chapter I
propose to pass right over, and to leave to my co-
defendant. I stop for one moment on pages 31,

138

32, and 33, which I shall not read, only asking you to
glance at the subject-matter: but I want first to make a
general remark on this chapter; the learned Solicitor-General,
doubtless through utter ignorance of medical science,
used an expression in deahng with this chapter which is
calculated to mislead you. He pointed out to you, I
don't know whether he intended you to read the book or
not, or whether he took the point for granted, that this book
dealt not only with the reproductive organs but also with the
external forms. The word " external," if you had not read
the book, would convey an utterly false idea to you ;

external" and " internal," used as medical terms in the
■ordinary m.edical division, were pointed out to you as
evidence of indecency. The word external " used as the
Solicitor-General used it, conveyed an utterly false impression
which there is nothing in the book to cover. When you
come to deal with Carpenter you will find expressions
which do convey indecent impressions to indecent minds,
but you will not find anything here to justify the idea the
learned Solicitor-General conveyed. I trust he did that
under a mistake, and made a suggestion he will regret. I
will nov/ put to you another point which my co-defendant
will put to you more fully : the Solicitor-General inferred
that the indecency of the publication was increased because
it only dealt with one sex and not with the other. The
suggestion was most unwarranted. Knov/lton only deals
with the physiological details which are necessary for the
application of his arguments. He does does not deal with
the other sex any further than is absolutely needful, and for
the learned Solicitor-General to put as a suggestion of
indecency what is simply a delicacy on the pa.rt
of Knowlton is most utterly unjust. I ask you to
remember, as I do not doubt you will have more fully
impressed upon you than I will venture to do, that what is
really a proof of the delicacy of Knowlton's work the
Solicitor-General tries to turn into a suggestion of its com-
plete indecency. Now I will refer you to pages 31, 32, and
.33 for a special reason, but shall have here to put in
evidence a book by Dr. Chavasse called Advice to a
Wife," and another book by Dr. Bull, called " Advice to
a Mother." The two books are exactly the same in
character, and they deal throughout with the whole
of the questions which affect a married women from
her marriage day. The only difference between Knowlton

139

and these books is that "both Chavasse and Bull and
are far more detailed in their descriptions. They give a
large number of stories to make their works read pleasantly
instead of writing a mere dry treatise like that of Knowlton.
I put it to you, as to the information given in those
pages which are objected to by the prosecution, that the
value of the information to a young married woman
cannot be over-estimated. So great is the truth of
this that you will find that many medical men, of careful
delicacy of mind, give these books to young married
wo nen who are their patients, for the very purpose of
avoiding the necessity of going into many personal details
which otherwise they would be compelled to deal with. I
am speaking here from my own personal experience, because
•when I was first married my own doctor gave me the work
of Chavasse, on the ground that it was better for a woman
to read the medical details than it was for her to have to
apply to one of the opposite sex to settle matters which did
not need to be dealt with by the doctor ; practically these
pages in Knowlton's work are a very short and very careful
summary of the subject dealt with by Chavasse and Bull :
where you have got to deal with a sixpenny book you must
summarise the details. Many a young married woman does
not like to apply to a medical man on many points that
may arise ; she sometimes does herself serious harm, and
perhaps brings on miscarriage, and lays the foundation of
future ill-health ; or she sometimes thinks herself seriously
ill when no real disease exists ; these pages are simply
invaluable to a v/oman, and they give to a poor woman for
sixpence that which a richer woman can buy for five or six
shillings. I will ask you whether for one moment, seeing
that these books are both sold by a member of Her
Majesty's Government, that they are not sold with any
restrictions, that they are sold on railway bookstalls, whether,
if any blame is to rest upon us because we publish a short
quietly worded treatise on that which others publish far
more warmly worded, no blame is to rest on them ? Surely
English justice, whatever your opinion may be, common.
English justice compels you, if you bring a verdict of guilty
against us, to at once institute a prosecution against Mr.
Smith, who is one of Her Majesty's Government, for circu-
lating amongst the higher classes at 2S. 6d. a work which
you say is indecent when circulated amongst the poorer
classes at 6d. The point as to the use of these books seems

140

to me so thoroughly pertinent, that I will here quote to you
what Dr. Bull puts in issuing this work ; in his preface
he says : In the minds of married women, and especially
in young females, those feelings of delicacy naturally
and commendably exist which prevent a full disclosure
of their circumstances when they find it necessary to
consult their medical advisers. To meet this difficulty,
as well as to counteract the ill-advised suggestions
of ignorant persons during the period of confinement
— are the chief objects of the following pages." This
book is now edited by Dr. Parker, who has edited the
work since the death of Dr. Bull. The same remark also
applies to another part of the book (pp. 15 and 16), where
you will find a number of remarks objected to by the pro-
secution. You will also find, when my co-defendant comes
to speak, that all its details are collected from books whose
circulation has never been interfered with, and that the
only difference between Chavasse and Knowlton is that
Knowlton is dry and very brief when compared side by side
with Chavasse and Bull, both of whom use a large amount
of what is called " literary padding." Once more I shall
have to ask you to look at the book itself for one moment,
and refer to pages 34, 35, 36, and 37; these pages deal
with cases of sterility and impotence, and the Lord Chief
Justice — I thought very wisely — pointed out to the learned
Solicitor-General that, in dealing with sterility, any man
who could give some cure which would remove sterility
might fairly be described as a benefactor to the human
race. As this point has already come from the Bench
as an expression of opinion,- I do not think I need
trouble you with any argument on it. Knowlton, in
dealing with it has dealt with it thoroughly within the
bounds of his subject, and has not included any unnecessary
information, but has only given that which it was his duty
to include in order that he might be understood by those
for whom he wrote. The remedies are here very much the
same as those which are approved of in the other medical books;
but suppose they were not, suppose that there was anything in
the suggestion of the learned counsel against one remedy —
difference of remedy, surely, cannot constitute obscenity in
medical works ; when the remedies which are proposed are
different they may be matters of discussion amongst those
who are qualified to discuss the question, but it cannot be
pretended that one remedy is a remedy that can be de-

141

fended as decent and the other one condemned as obscene ;
that in the mere language in which they are advocated there
is nothing, which, to a well-regulated mind, could suggest
indecency, has already been allowed. I would draw your
special attention to pages 36 and 37 as showing the intent
of Knowlton in writing. He puts there the very point
which the learned judge raised yesterday morning. He
says that " Impotency, at a young or middle age, and in
some situations especially, is certainly a serious misfortune
to say the least of it. The whole evil by no means consists
in every case, in the loss of a source of pleasure. All young
people ought to be apprised of the causes of it — causes
which in many instances greatly lessen one's ability of giving
and receiving that pleasure which is the root of domestic
happiness. I shall allude to one cause, that of premature,
and especially solitary gratification, in another place. In-
temperance in the use of spirits is another powerful cause.
Even a moderate use of spirits, and also of tobacco, in any
form, have some effect. It is a law of the animal economy,
that no one part of the system can be stimulated or excited,
without an expense of vitality, as it is termed. That part
which is stimulated draws the energy from other parts."
Gentlemen, I ask you whether that is the kind of language
that would be used by a man writing with intent to corrupt ?
And now I will ask you to look at page 37, on which I will
call your attention to the following passage : — " As to the
remedies for impotency, they are much the same as for
sterility. It is of the first importance that the mind be
relieved from all care and anxiety. The general health is
to be improved by temperance, proper exercise in the open
air, cheerful company, change of scenery, or some occupation
to divert the mind without requiring much exercise of it ;
nourishing food of easy digestion ; flannel worn next to the
skin. The cold bath may be tried, and if it be followed by
agreeable feelings, it will do good."

I will only ask you whether any possible remedies could
show more common sense or less desire to deprave or cor-
rupt the minds of the young. Knowlton simply gives that
knowledge which it is to the benefit of men and women to
possess, and nothing can be stronger than this chapter to
show that he was guided by good and pure motives. This
curse of sterility is so great a curse upon married people,
that any man who, for 6d., can point out the way to avoid
't, may be taken, as my lord said, to be a benefactor of the

142

human race. The remainder of the chapter deals with
checks to population, with which, as I said at the beginning
of my address, I propose to leave it to my co-defendant to
deal. The whole of this remainder was read out by the
learned Solicitor-General, and he put it to you that he read
it with a large amount of pain. If it pained him so very
much, I do not quite know why he should have read it as
he did, because, as you all, every member of the jury, and
your lordship, had the book before you, the extreme deli-
cacy of the learned counsel might have excused him from a
task he said was so painful.

The Lord Chief Justice : The learned Solicitor-General
is not here, and I think you must be just to him. He was
rather challenged to read them.

Mrs. Besant : Do you think that I ought to be gentle
v/ith him, my lord, as he is absent? (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice : What I said was, that you
must be just to him.

Mrs. Bezant : I did not mean to be unjust to him, my
lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : I said he was called upon to
read the passages. I thought it fairer to you that he should
point out the passages upon which he rehed, and upon
which he will rely by-and-by, when he comes to address the
Court.

Mrs. Besant : That is quite fair ; but I thought, if he
felt so very much pain, he might have avoided the special
anguish of mind he seems to have had in dealing with
these passages. I will not press the point any further, how-
ever, as the learned counsel is not here. I do feel the posi-
tion is especially painful for him, because, if he does not
get a verdict against a woman, it does make the position of
a learned counsel very painful. (A laugh.)

The Lord Chief Justice : You have gone through this
long — and, I must say, very able — address up to the present
without saying anything that could be regarded as painful
or offensive to any one.

Mrs. Besant : And I v/ill try to do so to the end. My
feelings towards the Solicitor shall be more charitable than
his were to me, for he accused me of some of the vilest
things a woman could do. But I will not press the matter
further, and perhaps, by not too roughly defending myself
against him, I shall make my case the stronger. I do not
say these checks pointed out by Knowlton are the best pos-

143

sible ; but, if they are not, that is a question which should
be left to the discussion of medical men. Dr. Knowlton
himself is a man of immense learning and culture, and, at
any rate, his opinion is entitled to a respectful hearing. If
his views are considered erroneous, the proper course is tc^
write a pamphlet pointing out where Knowlton is wrong,
and not to bring in this system of police supervision. There
is now only one single piece more in this chapter that I
shall trouble at all to draw your attention to, and you will
perhaps kindly excuse me from reading it. I do not knov/
whether I shall be in order if, instead of reading it, I hand
the passage to your lordship.
His Lordship : What is it ?

Mrs. Besant : It is a passage from the files of evidence-
taken before the Contagious Diseases Commissioners ; and
it is simply a special point that covers much in Knowlton.

The Lord Chief Justice : If it is anything you would
rather not read, you can leave it to your co-defendant.

Mrs. Besant : Very well, my lord ; then I will only
say that it instructs unmarried people to use one of the
checks given by Knowlton. I do not propose to deal
further with the third chapter. All in that chapter that
has given offence you will find put forward in other
books, but I do not propose to deal v/ith the details of
it in any way. I understand this supposed objectionable
portion is confined to three pages and a quarter, and
if the object of the book is bad and immoral, then the
whole of the remainder must be supposed to lead up to
these three pages and a bit ; but this can scarcely be con-
tended to be the case. The whole object of the book is
to promote marriage, and to teach temperance to those
v/ho are married, and it is utterly wrong that you should
judge from these three pages, instead of from the rest of the
book, which is manifestly good and manifestly pure. I
come now to the fourth chapter, in some respects the most
valuable in the book, a chapter which is its own defence
almost more strongly than anything I can say will
make it. You find Knowlton putting forward a quotation
from Mr. Robert Dale Owen on the reproductive instinct :
Controlled by reason," he says, " and chastened by good
feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and
zest, but directed by selfishness or governed by force it is
proUfic of misery and degradation. In itself, it appears to
be the most social and least selfish of all instincts. It fits

144

us to give even while receiving pleasure, and among culti-
vated beings the former power is even more highly valued
than the latter. Not one of our instincts perhaps affords
larger scope for the exercise of disinterestedness or fitter
play for the best moral feelings of our race. Not one gives
birth to relations more gentle, more humanising and en-
dearing, not one lies more immediately at the root of the
kindliest charities and most generous impulses that honour
and bless human nature. It is a much more noble, because
less purely selfish, instinct than hunger or thirst. It is an
instinct that entwines itself around the warmest feelings and
best affections of the heart.'' You will observe that it is not
as the Solicitor General put it, as if this instinct were to be
unrestrained, but that it is to be controlled by reason, and
chastened by good feeling." And I think that one may
fairly put it to you that no more elevating idea of love, re-
garded as a physical passion, can possibly be put forward
than is put forward here. In the next paragraph Dr.
Knowlton says : But too frequently its strength, together
with a want of moral culture, is such that it is not ' controlled
by reason;' and, consequently, from time immemorial, it
has been gratified, either in a mischievous manner, or to
such an intemperate degree, or under such improper cir-
cumstances, as to give rise to an incalculable amount of
human misery." That paragraph points out the mischief
that may come from sexual intercourse, and the chapter
goes on to show how that mischief may be avoided. I
am utterly at a loss to understand how it can be
suggested by the prosecution that a part of this book
gives encouragement to a loose way of thinking, when the
rest of the book is so distinctly against intemperance. In
the following paragraph Dr. Knowlton goes on to deal, I
think fairly from a medical point of view, with some of the
evil consequences that arise from this instinct under the
present state of things. Some of these consequences he
says it is the business of the " moralist to point out, whilst
of others it [falls within the province of the physician to
treat." He complains that " physicians have hitherto fallen
far short of giving those instructions concerning this instinct
which its importance demands. In books, pamphlets,
journals, &c., they have laid much before the public re-
specting eating, drinking, bathing, lacing, air, exercise, &c.,
but have passed by the still more important subject now
before us, giving only here and there some faint allusion to

145

It." Dr. Knowlton wrote to that effect some three-and-forty
years ago, but since that time many medical works of a
similar character have been published, so that Knowlton's
complaint would no longer be real. Dr. Knowlton then
goes on to say that " true philosophy dictates that this and
all other appetites should be so gratified as will most con-
duce to human happiness — not merely the happiness attend-
ing the gratification of one of the senses, but all the senses
• — not merely sensual happiness, but intellectual — not merely
the happiness of the individual, but of the human family."
Taking that position, I will simply ask you whether
you think that is the attitude of a man who wishes to
degrade the tone of society, and do harm to the morals of
the young. The next paragraph I will not read through.
It is the paragraph commencing at the foot of page 42 and
finishing on page 43. But I may point out that whilst it is
said that this pamphlet encourages young lads of seventeen
or eighteen to ruin their health by premature indulgence,
yet in this paragraph Dr. Knowlton points out that early
intercourse means ruin to their health when they come to
later years. The next point in the paragraph that I would
suggest as extremely useful is that he points out that the
marriage ceremony ought not to remove all restraint to
indulgence, or do away with the necessity of temperance.
He points out how much harm many young people have
caused themselves to suffer, because they utterly disregard,
after marriage, all those restraints which all moral people
observed before marriage. In the last paragraph of page 43
Dr. Knowlton shows that " temperance in this thing is not
to be decided by numbers, but that it depends on circum-
stances ; and what would be temperance in one may be in-
temperance in another. And with respect to an individual,
too, what he might enjoy with impunity were he a labouring
man, or a man whose business required but little mental
exercise, would, were he a student, unfit him for the success-
ful prosecution of his studies. Intemperance in the gratifi-
cation of this instinct has a tendency to lead to intemperance
in the use of ardent spirits. The languor, depression of
spirits, in some instances the weakness and want of appetite
induced by intemperate gratification, call loudly for some
stimulus, and give a relish for spirits. Thus the individual
is led to drink. This influences the blood, the passions,
and leads to further indulgence. This again calls for more
spirits, nnd thus tvv^o vicious habits are coramenced vrhich

146

mutually increase each other/' Now I ask you whether
that is the language of an immoral or sensually minded
man ? Is it not true that in these words he very shortly
but clearly points out to married people that they must
continue their self-restraint right through life, and that the
harm that may be done by lacking self-restraint may lead
them to intemperance, which in its turn will re-act again and
so make utterly miserable the whole of their lives. I put
that to you as utterly destroying the idea that the book was
written for the purpose of corrupting morals ; I urge that
this charge cannot be maintained against Dr. Knowlton, and
therefore cannot be maintained against those who have
published his work. The succeeding paragraph is of exactly
the same character, and I do not think that any advice can
be purer or more temperate, or iPiore utterly apart from any
desire to corrupt than his advice to the married people whom
he is addressing — no advice could be more moral, more
beneficial, more wholesome, more free from any intention
to corrupt than that contained in these passages.
Gentlemen, what is Dr. Knowlton's intention and object?
Take this chapter — the last paragraph in which I do not
read because it has been read already — and v/e see that his
purpose is to promote marriage, and to restrain intempe-
rance. He is charged with writing a bad book with impure
intent. But a man of impure intent does not speak against
profligacy ; a man of impure intent does not speak in favour
of marriage ; a man of impure intent does not urge tempe-
rance after marriage as well as before it ; nor does such a
man plead for self-restraint as we find Dr. Knowlton doing.
The very idea of bad intent — and bad intent is the essence
of the charge against v/hich I plead — the very idea is a
monstrous idea, and not one shadow of proof has been
brought forward which vvdll show you in what Dr.
Knowlton's bad intent consisted. It is said that Dr.
Knowlton was actuated by a bad intent, but it is not
shown in any way how that bad intention appears in this
pamphlet. But an objection has been raised to its
price. I have now finished what I want to say about
the book itself, and I now come to the question of
price, which has been made the subject of hostile
comment. I think I m.ay fairly put it to you — as was
almost suggested by the learned judge himself — that if a
book is not obscene in itself, the price will not make it
obscene. Its low price is part of the value of the book to

147

'US, because a book at a high price could not reach those j

poor people in whom we are specially interested at the pre- !
sent moment ; the poor cottager, the labourer, the artisan, —
those, in short, whom Mr.^ Montagu Cookson desired to

reach — cannot possibly be reached and taught how to pro- |

portion their families to their room except by means of '
low-priced books. They might get all this from Dr. Churchill,

Dr. Acton, Dr. Marion Sims, if they could obtain them ; :
b)ut all these books are dear, and it is simply mockery to
•offer poor people books at 30s. or two guineas each. It is

said that we sell a book for sixpence to anybody, and that ,

.somebody might desire to read it ''from curiosity or morbid \

.appetite but I will put it that it is not fair to put a bad I

motive into the minds of people who are desirous of read- j

ing a certain medical book. It does not follow that people j

who can only afford to spend sixpence on a book have a j

desire to gain a bad knowledge with their money. But if j

the price of this book is really an objection, then it does not j

stand alone. Take the Lancet^ a paper which contains -j

medical details beside which Knowlton is chaste in the j
•extreme. The Lancet is sold openly on the bookstalls at

7^. to anyone who chooses to buy it. The Medical \

Observer is sold for threepence — just half the price of '

Knowlton. That journal contains medical details of ;

what w^ould be called by the prosecution the most ;

.obscene character. Then there is the Obstetrical \

/our?ial, published at is. 6d., and bearing on its cover a 1

special advertisement of a book on this very subject at i

3s. 6d. By what reason, by what argument, by what logic \

are you asked to suppress Knowlton because he is sold at ;

6d., when these books remam unchallenged, some sold at \

3d., some at yd.? The price cannot make a book obscene. i

If it is not obscene at a high price, it will not be obscene 1

when sold at 6d. We must remember that cheap knowledge \

is one of the great glories of the day ; and such firms as \

Messrs. Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin have made their names i

famous just because they have put before the world useful ■

books at a price within the reach of everybody. I will ask |

you not to allow it to go out from this court as the verdict !
of twelve English jui^men that you measure indecency by
the price at which it may be bought, and that you would
allow that to pass at a high price which you count worthy
of condemnation at a low. Then we are told that the book
is being sown broadcast over London ; but why is that?

K 2

148

The book never would have been spread over London had
it not been for this prosecution. Seven hundred copies a
year was its circulation before this most ill-judged and most
ill-advised prosecution had given the book an importance it
did not deserve. This prosecution has given the book a facti-
tious importance, because people fancied that when such a large
amount of legal talent was brought against it there must be
something in it to induce people to buy it. It has been put
to you that if medical works were published generally to the
public the publishers would be indictable, but I scarcely
think the learned judge will allow that that is a fair con-
struction of the law, because every medical book we have
here to-day is published generally. There is no restriction
\n the sale of medical works. Anyone can go to Messrs ►
Churchill for a copy of any book, and no question will be
asked except " have you the money?" There is no such
thing as restriction of the sale of medical works. If a book
is printed for private circulation only, that is a different
matter ; there may be no publication then, because there is
no sale ; but if the book is once published there can be no
pretence raised that it is restricted in its circulation. The
enormous number of these medical works published shows
that they cannot have been in any way restricted in their
sale, for they have been circulated by tens of thousands.
But even though the sale were restricted — as it is not — •
medical works, if obscene at all, would be quite as obscene
in the lecture-room as in the street. And provided they
are sold, and generally published, I do not see that the
price at which they are sold at all touches the question of
their obscenity. Nay, the very fact that we have got these
medical works here to-day is proof that they are generally
published. I do not think Mr. Bradlaugh has himself
bought any of them, but they have been bought by Mr.
Parris, who is not a doctor, by Mr. Wells, who is still a
youth, and one or two by myself When I happened to
want to buy an edition of Bull I simply wrote to Messrs.
Longman for it and got it ; they never dreamt of making
any inquiry, but simply treated it as a matter of business,
fastened the book up and sent it through the post. If
general publication makes a work of this kind obscene we
ask you, why we should be specially singled out for prose-
cution, why this one book should be specially taken up ?
When Mr. Smith is in the box he will tell you there is no
restriction placed upon these books ; he will tell you that

149

their own agent at Paddington sold the book to me and
would sell it to anybody and never dream of making any
difficulty of any kind. And he will also tell you that the
sale of this book has been enhanced by the course taken by
this prosecution. The sale of Knowlton has increased
enormously during the last three months. Instead of the
700 copies published in one year before the prosecution,
about 125,000 copies have been sold in three months.
The book undoubtedly has circulated largely in all directions,
and we have allowed it to do so believing that we were right
in defending its free circulation. To have stopped it, it
appeared to us, would have been an act which might very
justly have been construed into an acknowledgement, on our
part, of guilt ; and therefore, I say frankly, we have not tried
to stop the sale of it. I openly state to you that we have
let the book go its own way,- and whilst, on the one hand,
we have not taken the trouble of advertising, we have,
on the other hand, put no difficulties in its way. We
did, however, stop the sale of it at our own place of
business. Not that we feared the consequences of
selhng it; but because we did not wish our shop-
people to be subjected to the same annoyance that we
have been subjected to. We stopped the sale of it over the
counter at Stonecutter Street ; and we have stopped also the
supply to the hawkers in the streets, for the simple reason
that we did not like their manners and customs. Notwith-
standing that, however, the sale has risen since the proceed-
ings taken against us by the prosecution from 700 a year to
125,000 in three months. That is one of the effects of
trying in a free country to stop the sale of a book which has
been uninterruptedly sold to the public for forty-three
years. If, gentlemen, we win your verdict, the book will
find its own level. Do not understand me to pretend
to say that there is anything specially valuable in
Knowlton himself that will cause his book to live
long ; far from it, and I, for one, shall not, after
an acquittal, care to sell another copy of it. We only
want to make the right for others to sell it freely to who-
mever desires to buy it. We do not desire to make a gain,
and we knew when we were selling it that we were running
a risk which no money gain would compensate. We felt
that it was necessary to raise the question of the right to
sell the work ; that we have done, and now, if we obtain
your verdict, our interest in the pamphlet ceases. The

ISO

moment your verdict is returned in our favour, that moment-
anyone can publish it. It will find its own level as a work
out of date ; but the great question we are fighting is one of
liberty of publication, and we ask you by your verdict to say
that there is a right to sell all honest thought honestly
expressed. That is the point I put to you. I do not, how-
ever, pretend to say or think that if we fail to-day — although
I think that an impossible result — that then the circulation!
will cease ; because I think the feeling in this country on.
the subject is so strong, that if we are convicted and
punished, you would find it necessary to institute in-
numerable prosecutions against persons who entertain
our views on this subject. And now I would ask you,
gentlemen, in concluding the remarks which I have thought
it right to put before you, and in thanking you for the
extreme patience you have exhibited in listening to me
throughout v/hat I know has been a very long address, I
would ask you, in dealing with your verdict, to consider
that you have not only to deal with the two defendants now
standing here to take their deliverance at your hands, but
with that great public feeling of England, which by no other-
means can so rapidly be raised as by any interference with
the liberty of the press. It is not only the question of the
publication of an obscene book that brings us here to-day.
Had it been so there would have been no necessity to
have occupied the time and attention of my lord and of
you, gentlemen. Had that been the only question the whole
matter would have been very quickly settled, and my co-
defendant and myself would have been dealt with at the
Old Bailey. It was with a feeling that such a work as the.
present had no right to be made the subject of a criminal
prosecution, that we determined to avail ourselves of the
right which a free English justice gives us, of coming into
this court and pleading here in defence of our cause, know-
ing, as we do, that thousands of the English people think
us right. Under those circumstances, I do not know how
you, gentlemen, will reconcile it "to your consciences to^
bring in a verdict of guilty against us, a verdict which
means that the work of Dr. Knowlton is one of a most
disgraceful kind. And I now leave the matter in your
hands, with every confidence, leaving the remainder of my
case in the hands of my co-defendant, knowing that his.
defence really, though not technically, will cover mine, with
the addition of the evidence of skilled witnesses, who

will tell you, not their opinions, but their experience,
and who will indorse the points I have put to you.
I fairly put it that unless you honestly believe that my whole
speech to you has been one mass of falsehoods ; unless you
beheve my intent to be a bad intent ; unless you believe I
have been deliberately deceiving you throughout, and stand
here before you in the very worst character a woman could
take upon herself, namely, that of striving to corrupt the
morals of the young under the false pretence of purity here
put forv/ard, and unless you think that, for the after-part of
my life, I deserve to pass through it with the brand upon me
that twelve gentlemen, after all patience, thought, not only
that the book was a mistake, the opinions wrong, and the
arguments unconvincing, but, in the terrible language of
the indictment, that I am guilty of " wickedly devising and
contriving as much as in me lay to vitiate and corrupt the
morals of youth " as well as of others, — unless, I say, you
believe that that has been my object and purpose, on this
indictment, I shall call upon you, gentlemen, to return a
verdict of "Not Guilty," and to send me home free, believing
from my heart and conscience that I have been guilty only
of doing that which I ought to do in grappling honestly
with a matter I consider myself justified in grappling v/ith —
that terrible poverty and misery which is around us on every
hand. Unless you are prepared, gentlemen, to brand me
with malicious meaning, I ask you, as an English woman,
for that justice which it is not impossible to expect at the
hands of Englishmen — I ask you to give me a verdict of
''Not Guilty,'' and to send me home unstained.

The conclusion of the address was received v/ith applause,
which the officers of the court suppressed.

Mr. Bradlaugh then proceeded to open his case. Ad-
dressing the Bench,

Mr. Bradlaugh said : Before I commence my opening
to the jury I have again to trouble your lordship, as to the
indictment, and I hope, after your lordship's intimation of
yesterday morning, you will not think I do so unduly or dis-
respectfully. I only want to preserve what I think are my
legal rights.

The Lord Chief Justice : I cannot deal with that. I
have told you I will reserve that point if necessary.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The only doubt is this, my lord. I
have been looking at the case of the Queen v. Gold-
smith ; but if your lordship will reserve any rights

152

The Lord Chief Justice : I have told you I will, already.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then, my lord, I will not press the matter
any further. There is, however, a very strong dictum of Lord
Chief Justice Bovill in the case of the Queen v. Goldsmith
I should have liked your lordship to have seen. I trust your
lordship will not think I wish in any fashion to trespass on
the Court, but there is another case I would wish your
lordship to take a note of. It is the case of the King v.
James, reported in Cox's **Criminal Cases," vol. 12, page 127,
and I will not trouble your lordship one word more, the
points being reserved to myself and co-defendant.

My lord and gentlemen, I feel the grave responsibility
that rests upon me in this case the more because I know
that any want of tact in speaking upon the extremely delicate
matters which I shall have to deal with may probably tend
to damage my co-defendant, who has so ably, and if his
lordship will permit me to say, so modestly, but earnestly
put her case before you ; and I will ask you to dismiss from
your minds in the beginning the whole of the references
made by the learned Solicitor-General to some other pro-
ceedings which may have been taken in some other place
against this pamphlet or some pamphlet similar to it. It
was laid down in the case of the King v. Drakard, Howell's
State Trials," vol. 31, page 534, where it was sought to plead
the acquittal of a defendant indicted for publishing a similar
libel to the one alleged against Drakard, that any evidence
of such acquittal was not admissible — that one jury was not
bound by the verdict of another jury, and that each jury
was equally capable of judging of the merit of any case
submitted to it ; and I draw your attention to that lest you
should think that some judgment which was alluded to by
the learned Solicitor-General, but of which no sort of evi-
dence was or could have been tendered in this case, ought
to influence you ; and lest you should think that that judg-
ment ought to have any practical effect on your verdict here.
I ask you, therefore, to utterly discard the learned
Solicitor-General's statement. I will now beg you to con-
sider the indictment on which you are asked to pass your
verdict against us. The indictment in effect is for publishing
an alleged obscene book, and, as has been pointed out by
my co-defendant, there is no statutory definition whatever of
the word obscene. In the 20th and 21st Victoria, known
as Lord Campbell's Act, there is a reference there to books
which are described as obscene books, and if one wanted

153

to gather what v/as meant by the word obscene one
would try to do so by examining the explanation
which was given by the learned judges themselves in debat-
ing that statute. In the debate in the House of Lords
which took place on the moving for the second reading
of the statute under which the seizure warrants are issued
against obscene books, Lord Campbell gave the definition
already read to you by my co-defendant ; but I shall have
to trouble you at a little more length on the subject of that
definition and debate, for I am going to submit to my lord
and to you that we are indicted under the common law,
and that common law is common usage, and that there
never has been an indictment tried out under the common
law against a work similar to this. I shall show the
character of works usually known as obscene to be entirely
different to the one under prosecution, and that fair physio-
logical treatises of whatever price and however widely circu-
lated and published, either by laymen or physicians, are not
and ought not to be considered as obscene works. I have
one difficulty to contend with in this case, and that is that
this is the first instance of a prosecution for alleged
obscene libel where the publisher has stepped forward
and said the book is not obscene. Sometimes the de-
fendants have denied the publication, sometimes pleaded
ignorance of the contents. We make no denial of
the publication of the pamphlet ; we come here admitting
that we published it, knowing every line in it, and we say
that we believe it not to be obscene. And I hope that be-
fore I conclude this speech I shall succeed in showing you
that there is not a line or a word in this book which can be
fairly or properly put as being of an obscene character.
That much may be unfamiliar to you, I can well conceive,
for when my attention was first called to this book in my
own judgment it seemed to me to contain objectionable
features in many of its details. But since I have read Dr.
Carpenter's works, line for line of which it will be my duty
to take you through, given as prizes at public schools even
by the Recorder of the City of London, who charged the
grand jury, at the Old Bailey, which found the true bill which
has sent us here, and put us on our trial before you, and
again, when I read the works of Dr. Kirke, of Dr. Fleetwood
Churchill, Dr. Marion Sims, Dr. Nichols, Dr. Brinton, Mr.
Hilles, Dr. Graily Hewitt, Dr. Chavasse, Professor Wilder,
and many others most probably known to you, but whose

154

writings can never be said to have been intended to inflame
the passions, I felt ready to stand before you, not to ask you
for deliverance from any limited punishment my lord might
give me on your verdict, should it be adverse to me, but
from the more severe consequences that a conviction of
intent to corrupt the public mind will cause me. The stain
which will rest on me in such an event will be one which
would sorely check and bar the career in which I have
hoped, and still hope, to make my way. This punishment,
I say, to me would be immeasurable in its severity, compared
with the mere sentence that would follow as the measure of
punishment I should receive here for what I have done.
And in speaking of that alone, I will affirm to you that there
is not a line of physiological information in Knowlton that
is not chastely put, and that the tone of the work is not
calculated in any way to inflame the passions or to deprave
the mind. The learned Solicitor-General — and unfortunately
my voice does not possess here the weight which his position
gives him — in conducting this prosecution against us,,
suggested to you that the work was full of colouring. If there
be a colouring in the work it is a colouring we do not make : it
is a colouring drawn from the misery, a colouring drawn from
the suffering, a colouring drawn from the poverty, a colouring
drawn from the despair with which we have to deal. The
learned Solicitor-General, I am sorry to say, used one v/ord
that I wish he had thought fit to have left out of his speech.
I am willing to believe, although not having the honour of
being a member of the profession and not having the
honour, at least on this side of the water, to be the friend
of any of its members, — I am willing to believe that a
gentleman in the position of the learned Solicitor-General
would not — to obtain a verdict in this case — have used the
word had it not been in the instructions given to him in his
brief ; but I have a great difficulty in reconciling to my own
mind how he can admit that there ib not a trace of vulgarity
in the work which he thinks right to describe as *^filth/^
I cannot help thinking that he forgot he was plead-
ing for the conviction of a man and woman, and for
the moment was led away by the thought that he
was conducting a civil case where some trick practice
would win the verdict of the jury in his favour for
the moment, to be ultimately reversed by the deliberate
judgment of thinking men. Now, let us consider first what
the word obscene" means. When the matter was first

debated in 1857, not at some common debating society, but
before an assemblage including the finest intellects in the
world, it was objected to by Lord Brougham with reference
to Lord Campbell's Act, that there was no definition of the
word "obscene." Lgrd Brougham asked — Hansard's Par-
liamentary Reports," vol. 146, No. 2, p. 329 — ''How did he
(Lord Campbell) propose to define what was an obscene pub-
lication ?" and Lord Brougham reminded the House that " In
the works of some of the most eminent poets there were some
objectionable passages which, und>er this measure, might cause
them to be considered obscene publications." What was
the reply of Lord Campbell? If you accept it, it is im-
possible for you to give a verdict against us. Lord Camp-
bell's reply was that " He had not the most distant con-
templation of including in the Bill the class of works to
which the noble and learned lord referred. The measure
was intended to apply exclusively to works written for the
single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of a
nature calculated to shock the common feelings of decency
in any well-regulated mind." And lest there should be any
mistake as to what Lord Campbell meant, he added, '' Bales
of publications of that description were manufactured in
Paris and imported into this country." And to make the
distinction still stronger, Lord Campbell then said that the
need for the statute was that the people who published them,
that is these obscene works, hid their names, were not to
be found, and that it was necessary to send spies and infor-
mers after them. This was not needed for persons who sent
previous notice to the public authorities that they were going
to publish a work. The whole offence lies in the intent,
with which it is published. V/hen did you ever see two
people give notice to the police authorities under circum-
stances involving a wicked intention of the act they are
about to commit. Before one copy was sold by us, as you
have heard from the witnesses for the prosecution, myself
and my co-defendant gave notice to the police authorities
of our intention to sell. However wrongful our act may be
adjudged by you, I deny that you can say we have not
acted with frankness and fairness. I deny that you can
assume against us any corrupt intent.

The Lord Chief Justice : That may be sought in the
work itself.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am content, my lord, to accept that,
and your ruling in the case of the Queen v. Hicklin,

iS6

that if within the four corners of the work it tends
to corrupt and deprave the public mind then no
good intent, either unmistaken or mistaken, can save us
from conviction. I would not be so impertinent — ignorant
though I may be on some matters of law — as to raise an
argument which I thought had no bearing on the matter. I
wished to show the jury that on the facts as proved we are
not persons who would be likely to publish a corrupting
work. The Lord Chancellor, replying to Lord Campbell,
said that which I unfortunately know to be true — ^'Who
could tell but that the superintendent of police or the magis-
trates before whom the application came would take a dif-
ferent view of what were obscene or indecent publications
from the noble and learned lord."

The Lord Chief Justice : The Lord Chancellor of that
day was Lord Cranworth ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Yes, my lord. Lord Lyndhurst, in the
same debate, asked, " What is the interpretation which is to
be put on the word * obscene ' ? I can easily conceive that
two men will come to entirely different conclusions as to its
meaning." No one can help taking a very different view,
but in a case where there is no suspicion that one was going
to run away, where we went to the police office to look
after the authorities, so as to be in readiness if summoned,
it is a little hard that difference of opinion should involve
personal indignity. Instead of treating us reasonably, fairly,
and summoning us, we were taken on warrants — an indignity
I do not complain of personally, but I do complain of
such conduct towards the lady who is my co-defendant, and
if I have a greater sense of responsibility in now addressing
you it is because this lady, who has to share the result
of this trial with me here, has been to no inconsider-
able extent influenced in her course of action by my
views on the law of population. With me this ques-
tion is no new question. I have been a journalist for
the last nineteen years, and in my first prospectus I put
forward the Malthusian view as part of the editorial
intention of that journal, and lest the jury should think
that we now take up this struggle in any mere desire for
novelty or notoriety, I may mention that the late Mr. John
Stuart Mill left me, written by himself, in his autobio-
graphy, a few lines stating that I commended myself to him
because I took upon myself the advocacy of these Malthusian
views when they were even more unpopular than to-day. If

157

the work of my life has in your judgment been corrupt when
I have sought to teach prudential checks, if you think
that I have been criminal in that I have tried to cure
])overty by these remedies, try, gentlemen, to decide for
yourselves in what fashion the growing evil of poverty is to be
dealt with. My co-defendant has sought to show you what
is the condition of the poorer classes. Permit me to add a
word from my own experience. Some working men in the
North of England recently made me arbitrator in a dispute
as to the wage of those men who were workers in one of our
coalmines. By my award I took 15 per cent, off that wage, and
mostof those men are earning atthis time less than ;£i a-week.
If I am not to be permitted to show to these men how they
may prudentially alleviate their poverty, what am I to do
for those poor- toilers who put their confidence in me, and
whose wage I have reduced ? It is with a view to ensure the
welfare of these poor people, that my co-defendant, perhaps
influenced for some time by my strong views on the
question, but now governed entirely by her own views of
duty, has with me published the pamphlet which has caused
her to be placed in a position which but few gentlewomen
would like to take. Is it " obscene to teach the poor and
wretched not to crowd hungry mouths together where food
is short and misery plentiful? Lord Lyndhurst asked " what
is the interpretation which is to be put on the word
obscene ? " And in trying to deal with this question I will
endeavour not to travel over that which my co-defendant
has so clearly stated to you in her speech. Lord Campbell
said the question was for the jury to decide, and I will ask
them here so to decide it that no such stain shall rest upon
us as the indictment seeks to cast. An expression of
opinion fell from the Lord Chief Justice yesterday to which
I cannot quite assent. I agree with my lord that there are
works which do not come under the ordinary definition of
the word obscene, but which might tend to corrupt public
morals, and I also agree that a work which recommended
assassination would be a work tending to corrupt pubUc
morals, but I deny that any such work would be prose-
cutable under this indictment. I am not indicted for such
a v/ork. This is a specific indictment for publishing a book
specially described and the verdict must be in the language
of the indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice: Of course.

iS8

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then I will not press that a moment
longer on your lordship.

The Lord Chief Justice: A book recommending
assassination would not be an obscene book. But how does
that help you ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I will put a case to you, because of
what fell from the learned Solicitor-General. Supposing —
which I utterly and indignantly deny — that this Pamphlet,
which, it has been alleged, recommends abortion, actually
did so, while I agree it would be an offence of a fit character
to justify a prosecution, yet I say it is riot one punishable
under an indictment such as the one under which we stand
charged, and I wish to submit that to your lordship very
strongly, because I do not want to raise issues unneces-
sary to be raised, nor do I want to have a view passing
through your lordship's mind which would involve me in
the supposition that I am arguing with reference to one
kind of supposed guilt, when actually arguing against
another. The offence charged against us is under the
common law, that is the common usage of the country, and
it is, comparatively, a modern offence so far as the common
law is concerned. The case of the King v. Curl, in 1727,
is the first case which, as far as I am aware, was ever tried
out at common law, so as to obtain condemnation of the
defendant. It is reported in Howell's " State Trials," vol.
xvii., page 154, and I cannot help thinking that anyone
reading, with care and attention, the decisions from the
case of King v. Curl forwards to the present day, could
come to but one decision, as to what works are intended to
be indictable as obscene works, i.e.^ works which incite to
the commission of acts which have been considered by
proper legal tribunals to be acts of obscenity. And I sub-
mit that, under the common law, you will not now find out,
or extract for my prejudice, a definition of the word obscene,
which has never yet been laid down by the judgment of any
court, or affirmed by the verdict of any jury. I will now
deal with the details of the physiological part of the work,
with respect to which his lordship has made a remark.

The Lord Chief Justice: It was not altogether with
reference to the physiological details I interfered ; it was
rather that these details, though perfectly pure, must be
looked at through the intent and purpose of the whole
book.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well, my lord. They say then, in

IS9

effect, qtta detail, the work is not indictable, but the intent of
the 'work being to prevent conception under certain circum-
stances, the whole of the book is assailable as an immoral
book. Now can it be an offence to advocate checks to
conception ?

The Lord Chief Justice : If it corrupts the public
morals with relation to birth it is. That is a matter for the
jury. I certainly shall not withdraw from the jury the
question whether the proper construction to be put upon
the book is that its opinions with regard to the duties of
women had a demoralising tendency. That is for the jury
to decide.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then comes the difficulty, indicted as
we are under the common law, into which I am placed, that
there has never yet been a similar book submitted for judicial
decision.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is for the jury to say
whether that is or is not an offence ; that is, whether a re-
commendation v/hich shall have for its effect this restriction
of births does or does not tend to the depravation of the
public morals.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I submit we do not come within the
terms of an ordinary prosecution where your lordship would
direct the jury that the offence is within the statute, or clear
under the law declared, because the question is for the first
time now to be decided before a judge and jury.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is useless to repeat. What
I shall leave to the jury in time is that which has been laid
down over and over again when the offence has been com-
mitted— i.e.^ that published matter that tends to deprave the
public morals, the effect of which is in the opinion of the
jury to corrupt the minds of youth or anyone else, is an
offence.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then it will be a question for the jury
whether, taking a fair and unprejudiced view of the matter
in this pamphlet, it does tend to deprave and corrupt.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is the question I shall
put to them.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am quite willing to accept that, and
it is what will govern me in my presentation to the jury of
my defence in this case ; and I call your lordship's attention
now to the case of the Queen v, Hicklin, and especially to
the case of Steel v. Brannan, which was a case of the almost
entire republication of the same pamphlet in the report of

i6o

the trial. There the defendants submitted that they had
left out some of the " most filthy and abominable passages
occurring in the former edition/' the use of which words
precluded the supposition that even the defendants in the
Queen Hicklin case could contend that the pamphlet
there was not obscene. Your lordship's own language in
the case of the Queen v. Hicklin seems to me most vitally
in my favour. Your words were, " I think if there be an
infraction of the law, and an intention to break the law,
the criminal character of such publication is not qualified
or affected by there being some ulterior object of a different
and of an honest character." Upon that I submit that, to
find us guilty, the jury must not only be of opinion that there
has been an infraction of the law, but an intention to break
the law.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is not what I said.
What I said was, if the effect of the publication was to
corrupt the minds of the individuals composing the public
it was not because the publisher thought some ulterior good
was likely to arise from it, that he was excused.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not in any sort of fashion wish
to insist on any words that may be incorrectly applied
to you lordship, but I was reading from the Law Journal
report.

The Lord Chief Justice : No, that is what I think I
said, that is what I meant to say, and what I shall say now.
Suppose the effect of this work — I am only putting it hypo-
thetically — suppose the jury think the effect of this language
is to corrupt public morals, it is not because of a desire to
alleviate poverty — it is not that which would excuse an in-
fraction of the law, if there has been any. That is all I
meant to say then, and shall say now.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The difficulty, my lord, still passing
through my mind is, suppose myself and co-defendant to
have believed the pamphlet not to have been an infraction
of the law — suppose we made it clear to your lordship and
the jury with whom the decision rests that there never has
been any hostile judgment against a work of this class, and
that, on the contrary, works — innumerable v/orks — containing
the same matter had been published unchecked, I only
want — not to press it unfairly, but — to have your lordship
and the jury in full possession of the contention I wish to
raise, that, if so, this is no offence at common law, there
having been nothing decided during the last hundred and

i6i

fifty years to govern us ; I wish to convince your lordship
that we cannot be convicted on this indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice : I shall be bound to direct the
jury to the contrary.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well, my lord ; I will not press it
further. I will come, then, to the dictum in the same case
of Mr. Justice Mellor, and that I feel bound to urge on your
lordship. In the case of Queen v. Hickhn his lordship,
after saying that he arrived at his decision with some diffi-
culty, says: — ^^The subject itself, if it is a subject which
may be discussed at all, and I think it undoubtedly may, is
one which cannot be dealt with without, to a certain extent,
producing authorities. Now I take it for granted that the
magistrates themselves were perfectly satisfied that this
pamphlet went far beyond anything that was necessary or
legitimate for the purpose." Supposing the population ques-
tion is a fair subject for discussion one must examine what
the object of this pamphlet purports to be, and whether it
is reasonably and fairly what it purports to be ? It purports
to be an essay on the population question, and I will not
venture to go over the grounds put forward so ably and ex-
haustively by my co-defendant, who has amply proved that
the pamphlet is really what it purports to be. Is it an in-
dictable offence to put forward views on the population
question, or to discuss checks to over-population, or to re-
commend some kind of checks ? Where is any authority
for any one of these propositions laid down ? I venture to
say it has never been laid down that it is an indictable
offence to advocate the Malthusian view of the population
question.

The Lord Chief Justice : Certainly not.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then, if not, comes the next question of
advocating checks. It surely is not indictable to advocate
checks to over-population ?

The Lord Chief Justice : If you do not advocate it by
means which are inconsistent with public morality.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then comes, is it indictable to advo-
cate checking population by one means, and not indictable
to advocate checking population by some other means ?

The Lord Chief Justice : It might be by late marriages
instead of early marriages. There is nothing indictable in
that.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Professor Fawcett and Mr. Malthus no
doubt advocated late marriages ; then comes the question,

l62

is it indictable advocating early marriages, and advising
checks to operate after marriage ? I respectfully contend
that it is not. The checks have been divided by my co-
defendant into death-producing and birth-restricting ; the
birth-restricting can only be divided into two kinds, having
sub -divisions — the one, late marriage, which I will dismiss for
a moment, and the other early marriage and small families
early marriage coming first and the check coming afterwards.
You have had many extracts from an essay on the morality
of married life by Mr. Montagu Cookson, and it is only fair
for me to say of Mr. Montagu Cookson that he has written me
a letter in which he says that it is not his view which is put
forward by Knowlton in this pamphlet. He holds the doc-
trine that it is possible for married people to produce oi
check conception according to the special period of co-
habitation, and that, I think, is fairly what Mr. Cooksort
would say if in my place, although it is not my duty to press
his language in this way. I do not wish to do any injustice
to him. He says it is the right thing to marry early, but
you must restrain yourself after marriage, and in his letter
he says you can do so by knowing and observing the laws
governing the reproductive system of women. There are
the mensual periods when women conceive more easily than
at other times, and therefore at such periods restraint is-
necessary. If that be true, you must instruct the persons
v/hom you desire to practise restraint, and then the whole
of that part of the Knowlton Pamphlet, as to the menstrua-
tion and the liability to conception, is instruction necessary
to be communicated to the mass of the people
whom you desire should utilize that knowledge. I must say I
heard v/ith some surprise from the learned Solicitor-General
that this instruction must be confined to the medical
schools and not communicated generally to the public. I
submit that such a contention is the height of absurdity. If
it is the population you wish to check, you must publish the
instruction, enabling such checks to be applied, to the masses
of the people, and more especially you must pubhsh to
that class, some of whom are even now only earning some-
thing like 12s. a week. In Hereford, the other day, I
learned from proceedings before the magistrates that there
were men in that county who earned but Ss. 6d. a week.
You say, then, that such men as those are to consult medical
practitioners, to whoiri they must pay a fee for advice on
the subject; and that they must not have this work for six-

i63

pence, although works of a similar nature, at prices varying
from IS. 6d, to half-a-guinea, are sold by Messrs. Churchill,
Messrs. Renshaw, Messrs. Longman, and Messrs. Triibner.
and are to be bought on the railway bookstalls, by all who
can afford? It has been said by the learned Solicitor-
General that the book is an obscene one, because it may
get into girls' schools. I shall show you that Dr. Carpenter's
works and Dr. Kirke's " Handbook of Physiology " are used
for the examination of boys and girls in Government
schools, for the education of both boys and girls. I am
within the ruling of his lordship ; but I am prepared to put
into the box scholars who were instructed in these works, and
who received them as prizes. It is a work of great diffi-
culty to collect this class of evidence, and in our case it has
been immense, for there is a reluctance to come forward in
a case where obscenity is alleged. What we have the
question narrowed to is this, holding the view that the
population has a tendency to increase faster than its means
of subsistence, we urge that it is necessary to encourage
preventive checks on population. In an essay of my own, en-
titled Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus," I have thus stated the
Malthusian position — " Mr. Malthus advanced three propo-
sitions : — I. That population is necessarily limited by the
means of subsistence. 2. That population invariably in-
creases when the means of subsistence increase. 3. That
the checks which suppress the superior power of population,
and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence,
are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery."
Take that as a fair summary of Malthus. I say it is not
wrongful to advise, as John Stuart Mill, Professor Leone
Levi, and Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett have done, that there
should be prudential checks in lieu of the positive ones of
starvation, disease, and crime ; and how is the general
public to know anything about prudential restraint, or to
practise prudence as recommended, unless you publish
cheap works in plain language, so that they may be widely
circulated? If you tell me that this is a colourable work
written for another purpose, that is another thing, and I
understood the learned Solicitor-General rather to put it
on that issue ; but I emphatically deny that there is any-
where in the book the slightest particle ot evidence of any
such colourable character. If you tell me that this book is
indictable because of its advocating checks which have not
become commonly known, and which the English public

164

have not yet understood, I utterly repudiate the proposition.
There are many means of preventing births in cases of
disease which are urged by medical writers who have never
been made the subject of a criminal prosecution. I will ask
your lordship if this is to be denounced as obscene? If
it be obscene at all, whether it is to be published
in a medical student's room or at Stonecutter Street
cannot matter at all. The mere fact that it is widely
sold and that it is cheap in price cannot, I submit, in
any way affect the judgment which my lord will ask the jury
to give upon this indictment. It is not necessary that I
should go in any fashion into the long argument with respect
to this point of over-population, as my co-defendant has
already gone into it so thoroughly ; but I must ask your
lordship to bear with me for a moment while I deal with
some expressions of opinions of persons nine or ten years
ago treating on this question, — a number of persons of
whom I was one. The matter is printed in the Joicrnal of
Healthy then edited by Dr. Hardwicke, the present coroner
for Middlesex. In 1868 there was a debate at the London
Dialectical Society on a paper read by Mr. Laurie, where I
made a speech, with which I will not trouble you. The son
of one of the leading statesmen of our time on the Liberal
side, Lord Amberley, who is now dead, took part in the dis-
cussion. Mr. Laurie had been the tutor of Lord Amberley,
and the following is from the report : Lord Amberley said
that the subject brought forward by Mr. Laurie was of first-
rate importance. There was no doubt that prevention of
over-population was far the best method of attacking the evil.
How was that motion best to be spread ? He was glad to
hear Mr. Bradlaugh say that the working-classes were
beginning to debate this vital point. Unfortunately, the
influence of the clergy, in common with that of society and
the natural passions of mankind, were opposed to the pre-
vention of over-population. He believed, indeed, that
women would naturally have a stronger feeling against large
families, had they any say in the matter, and if these opinions
were more heard. He was truly glad to hear the credit of
the discovery given to the great Malthus. Like all other
discoveries, there was something wanting to work out the
details of Malthus' views and the way in which population
could be prevented with the least pain and discomfort. . . .
Emigration was good, but not rapid enough to reHeve the
pressure caused by rapid multiplication. The practical con-

i6s

elusion from all of which considerations seemed to him to be,
that Malthus was correct, and that if we were to escape from
poverty, it must be by means of limitation of our families. We
naturally objected to w^ar and famine. He (Lord Amberley)
objected to celibacy. Well, then, the only remaining altera-
tion seemed to him to be small families ; and this was, in
fact, a medical question. He much wished he could stay to
hear the opinion of the medical gentlemen in the room
whether it was possible to restrain the size of families with-
out measures which were injurious to health. The American
ladies were in the habit of keeping back their famiUes : but the
means used by these ladies seemed to him, as far as he had
heard, dangerous to health ; and hence he should much like
to hear discussion upon the point whether some less hurtful
means could be suggested." I should tell your lordship,
that in New England, in the old and settled parts of America,
in France, and other countries, the use of checks to pre-
vent large families by poor people is a matter of everyday
practice ; and I don't know, my lord, how morality is to be
measured if I am to be told it is immoral to prevent the birth of
those miserable and wretched beings whose state is so depicted
in Bishop Fraser's report. No doubt, if so, we are immoral.
But, says the learned Solicitor-General, if the work were
limited to married people there might be no objection, whereas
you put it within the reach of unmarried persons who may
abuse it. A man who sells a razor puts in the hands of a
person an instrument with which he might cut another's
throat, but that man does not advise the other to commit
murder, nor would he be indictable if without his participa-
tion murder were done. I must complain of unfair
suggestions on the part of the learned Solicitor-General, when
he said that there was mentioned in the work an instrument
for checking population which might be purchased at any
chemist's shop for one shilling; he was not familiar,
evidently, with the works of Hewitt, Sims, Churchill, and
the " Ladies' Companion," which is a journal published by
the Homoeopathic Society, or he would have said in so many
words that that mysterious instrument was a harmless syringe,
which is commonly used for personal cleanliness. The use
of the word instrument was calculated to convey an im-
proper impression which the language of the work does not
justify. What I have to contend is that it is lawful to argue
the question of restraint to population, and that the physiolo-
gical details of this pamphlet do not, in the language of Mr.

i66

Justice Mellor, go beyond what may be termed necessary or
legitimate for the purpose. I was most pained to hear from
the learned Solicitor-General the declaration that the work
was to be condemned as obscene because it only describe."^
the female organs.

The Lord Chief Justice : I confess when I heard the
Solicitor-General say that I was surprised, because I thought
that it was the more a proof in favour of the pure intention
of the work. If the work had been intended to corrupt the
morals of theyoung, it would have contained statements which
would tend to corrupt the minds of females as well as of males,
and if a description of the female tended to corrupt the
male youth, it would be natural to suppose that there would
be the converse — the description of the male. I don't,
therefore, feel any force in the observation of the Solicitor-
General.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I will not add one word to what your
lordship has said. I have so many details to go through
that I feel I may weary the jury, but the length of the case
is not my fault. I have asked the prosecution, What do
you rely on ? " and they say, "The whole book." Line by
line my co-defendant has gone through a portion of it, and
I will go line by line through the other part for the purpose
of showing you that no part of it is obscene, and of pointing
out to you what I think ought to be your verdict ; and I
submit that in this work of Knowlton the whole of the phy-
siological details given here, beginning with page ii and
going forward, are descriptions only of such parts of the
female organism as are thought necessary for the reader to
know with relation to health and disease of the female when
capable of the exercise of her reproductive functions, and from
conception to birth. The learned Solicitor-General, with
the business of an advocate, regarding the gain of his cause
rather than accuracy ot statement, said that the sexual act
was described with a disgusting fullness and particularity.
Not only is there no such particularity, but, on the contrary,
the details are scant compared with such works as I shall
have to compare it with, line by line, until I have con-
vinced you. You will say nothing can be more chaste or
delicate than Knowlton, if he is to refer to these matters at
all. I need hardly concern myself with the inquiry as to
who is prosecuting us, because, if we have committed an
ofl'ence, it does not matter ; and if not, no kind of outside
influence will here govern the verdict to be given. I will

16;

only put it, that it would have been better that we should
have stood face to face with our actual prosecutor — the one
who really finds the means of briefing the learned gentlemen
against us. But we do, I hope and befieve, stand face to
face with a judge and jury who have not only fairness and
patience to hear the arguments we have to offer them, but
-svho would all dismiss any sort of prejudice that might be
sought to be imported into this inquiry. I wondered at the
learned Solicitor-General introducing a topic such as the
Christian religion into his address here, and I pass without reply
the words so used. If this work is to be considered obscene
because it is cheap, what becomes of " Chambers's Encyclo-
paedia" and other works issued in numbers, which pubfish
descriptions and illustrations of the generative organs. Now,
I put it that the fact that some one else may make an ill-use of this
work is, as my co-defendant put it to you, a matter to be
entirely dismissed from your mind ; that a work on toxi-
cology is not indictable simply because some one may
learn how to practise from it a mischief to the community
b)y taking life with poison. The Recorder, in his charge to
the grand jury, who have sent us before you, said that a
medical work, though indecent, published for medical
students in a medical lecture-room, would not be indictable,
but that, circulated widely, it would become so. I submat
that if the book be indictable in itself it is indictable
wherever published, and that if not so indictable, the in-
crease in its publication cannot create it an offence. The
Solicitor-General said that we contended for the right to
•expose the human frame in public, and he gave another
illustration not so pleasant to the ears. We make no
such contention. There is a distinction that is admitted
with regard to acts which are a nuisance and annoy-
ance to others ; a distinction recognised in this country,
and, I may say, recognised in every civilized country. I
reply that the exposure of the naked human form is
criminal.

The Lord Chief Justice : I suppose you would admit
that an illustration of the human form in all its details in
natural size placarded about the streets would be an

•offence ?

Mr. Bradlaugpi : Oh, yes, my lord.
The Lord Chief Justice : It is not the subject in itself
that is indictable.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I only say that exposing the human

i68

form in all its details, in any size, to the annoyance of the
public, is a fair matter to be dealt with and punished by the
law. I am not here to start false arguments or to contend
for absurd positions.

The Lord Chief Justice : Go further than that. If a
man took it into his head that the exposure of such a matter
would tend to the profit of the State, if he went to such aa
extent, he must take the consequences.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Which ought to be " Colney Hatch,''^
my lord. (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice : I should think so.

At this stage of the proceedings the Court rose.

169

THIRD DAY.

Lord Cf[iEF Justice Cockburn took his seat at 10.30 a.m.^
and the Court was again densely crowded. Mr. Bradlaugh
immediately rose to resume his defence.

Mr. Bradlaugh : There is, in the extremely accurate
report in the Times, a comment, my lord, which makes me
fear that I failed to convey quite the explanation I intended
to put to your lordship on Montagu Cookson^s paper in the
Fortnightly Review. I intended to put to your lordship
what Mr. Cookson, in a private letter to myself, had ex-
pressed : that the restraint after marriage, upon which he
relied, was a restraint in association at certain periods before
and after the menstrual period of the woman ; but there is
nothing whatever in the article of Mr. Cookson which in any
fashion limits his explanation and the language, as reported
in the Times seems to convey the notion of restraint in the
sense of a sort of celibacy after marriage. The language of
Mr. Cookson's article is entirely at variance with that con-
struction, and I hope your lordship will pardon me putting
that before you, as I wanted to make quite clear my view so
as not to misrepresent Mr. Cookson, or, on the other hand^
to injure my cause. There is one other point — the letter
sent to the Times

The Lord Chief Justice : We really cannot go into
that.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well ; I will only ask that nothing
that appears in connection with the reports may be taken as
militating in any fashion against what is put here in this
case. Now, my lord, I submit that the intention to break
the law by publishing obscene matter is governed in this
way. I will use your lordship's own words, in the case of
the Queen Hickling — words which, if it were not
impertinent, I should say that I urge in the strongest
fashion — " Where a man publishes a work manifestly ob«
scene, he must be taken to have had the intention "

The Lord Chief Justice : Equally so, if he publishes a
book manifestly immoral. Is it desirable to discuss this

legal question ? I must remind you that you are addressing
the jury, not me.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Well, my lord, I will pass away
from that entirely, and I will put to your lordship, and
to the jury, a series of propositions on which I shall ask
their consideration, and the answer to v/hich will govern
the verdict which you will give in this case. The lirst
proposition I shall submit is one that has already
been more than proved to you, that the essay indicted
is an essay on the population question, and I submit
next, under my lord's correction, that the question is one
lawful to be discussed. I submit next that it has been
amply shown to you, and could be proved over and over
again, that over-population is a fruitful source of poverty,
ignorance, crime, vice, and misery ; that therefore the advo-
cacy of prudential checks to population is not merely law-
ful, but is highly moral. That the prudential checks are all
birth-restricting checks. That birth-restricting checks are by
delays of marriage or by restraint after marriage. That late
marriages and celibacy or general abstinence after mar-
riage involve horrible diseases and crimes, and perpetuate
prostitution. I had, when I framed that last proposi-
tion, in thinking of the best way of putting it to the
jury distinctly — I had simply put it that late marriages
and cehbacy involve horrible diseases and crimes, and
perpetuate prostitution. But when I found that there
seemed to be a possible contention that it might be
lawful to advocate that which was equivalent to absolute
celibacy, so far as all sort of consummation after marri-
age was concerned, after going through the marriage cere-
mony; that proposition seemed to me to involve all
the terrible consequences of ordinary celibacy, both to the
man and the woman, with the addition that there v/ould
in that case be the provocative excitement of association,
and the worse disease arising from a denial of it, if you
can suppose such a denial possible amongst people of
the poorer classes, from whom the great mass of the
population spring. That early marriages involve the
advocacy of restraint of, and intelligent gratification of,
the reproductive functions. I submit that if you are
dealing with the question of population, having admitted
the law of population, and the doctrine of early marri-
ages that then you must admit the right and duty to
advocate restraint ; if you hold that doctrine of celibacy

171

is attended with disease and crime, and perpetuates
prostitution, then you must also advocate the inteUigent
gratification of the reproductive functions. That restraint
after marriage must be of two kinds : one, the abstinence
from cohabitation which has been advocated by many
doctors, who contend that during certain periods,
within a certain time before or after the menstrual
period, conception is either impossible, or, at any rate,
difficult. Against that you have the fact that a well-known
people, by their ceremonial laws, are prohibited from sexual
intercourse during the period indicated, and notwithstand-
ing that they are notoriously a most prolific people, so
that I submit that the restraint after marriage must mean
the intelligent gratification of the functions, so that the act
shall not involve bringing into life a child whom the
parents are unable to support. I submit that advocacy of
such a restraint has never been declared unlawful, my lord,
and that it is not unlawful, and I submit that advocacy of
such a restraint does not tend to deprave and corrupt
the public mind, but tends to promote and to
increase the morality of the people. I submit further,
that the worst evil that could happen, supposing the
acceptance of this doctrine, is that unmarried people might
cohabit without having children, and that this is not
an evil for which we should be held criminally responsible,
as the pamphlet urges and insists on marriage in such terms
as demonstrates that the insistment is not a colourable pre-
tence; and here I repeat, with all the force that any earnest-
ness can add to the eloquent repudiation by my co-defend-
ant of any consciousness on our part of any colourable pretence
by Charles Knowlton, that there was no evidence even tendered
of any such consciousness. I say, except the unsupported
inuendo of the Solicitor-General, required by the exigencies
of his brief, there is not a paragraph from one end of this
pamphlet to the other to warrant the supposition that it is
directed against marriage ; and I say that, in point of fact,
at the present time unmarried people do cohabit and have
children, and that there are serious consequences flowingfrom
it — consequences so serious that, to use the words of Dr.
Lankester, now dead, quoted from the Journal of Public
Health in 1868, by my co-defendant in her speech — he
said that there were in London in that year 16,000 women
who had murdered their offspring. I say that at the very
worst this pamphlet might have prevented the repetition of

172

these 1 6,000 murders annually. I submit to you, gentlemen
of the jury, that it is moral to teach poor people to marry
early, and that this teaching avoids and will diminish
illicit intercourse. I will not weary you with reading the
whole of the report on the Employment of Women and
Children in Agriculture," from which my co-defendant
quoted that terrible extract from the report of Bishop
Fraser. You will there find that the illicit intercourse which
we are charged with trying to produce is an illicit intercourse
which is going on and bringing with it the birth of the child,
and bringing with it the murder of the child by the mother,
because there is the pang of starvation and misery and shame
to contend with. I say that it is amongst the poor married
people that the evils of over-population are chiefly felt, and
that it cannot tend to deprave their morals to teach them
how to intelligently check this over-population ; and I sub-
mit, and I ask your gravest attention to this submission,
because if you decide it in my favour it will, without any-
thing else, determine your verdict in this case — that the
advocacy of all checks is lawful except such as advocate the
destruction of the foetus after conception or of the child after
birth. I say that the advocacy of every birth-restricting check
is lawful which is not the advocacy of the destruction ot
human life in any form after that life has been created.
Now, gentlemen, if you should decide that in my favour
there is an entire end of the whole case ; and I submit to
your lordship, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, with whom
the arbitrament under his lordship's direction rests, and in
whose hands our future is placed, that that is a proposition
on which we are entitled to ask an affirmative answer at
your hands. The proposition is not very long ; permit me
to repeat it to you again, because it governs the whole of the
case I am going to submit to you : That the advocacy of
all checks to over-population is lawful except such as advo-
cate the destruction of the foetus after conception or of the child
after birth. I admit in the fullest sense that any advocacy
of the destruction of human life is not simply illegal under
statute, is not simply illegal under common law, but is
illegal under that moral law which obtains wherever there is
an intelligent appreciation of what morality should be.
That is, such advocacy is moral because it tends to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number with the least injury to
any. I say that the advocacy of any checks amongst the
masses to be useful must of necessity be put in the plainest

173

language and in the cheapest form, and be widely spread ;
and I press that upon you because I understand that the learned
SoHcitor-General in his argument put it that one of the faults
of this pamphlet was that it was not obscured in learned lan-
guage. If we possessed the facility of expressing ourselves in
French, or Italian, or Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or Arabic,
what earthly use would that be to the poor unfortunate
wretches whose misery we want to redress? It was objected
over and over again, as my co-defendant reminded you, that
there seemed to be some crime in the price of the book
being sixpence, which made it specially objectionable. But
if you take the fact, as fact it is, that in the whole of the
counties of Northumberland and Durham, while I speak,
the best paid class of hewers of coal are not now averaging
much more than per week ; take that for a man and
his wdfe and three children only. But suppose him to have
five. The Pauper Unions allow 4s. 6d. per week, and some-
times a little more, for boarding out a pauper child. Suppose
the coalhewer has a family of five, six, or seven — do the
multiplication for yourselves, and leave nothing for luxury
or dissipation on the part of the bread winner — I ask what
means has he of purchasing the expensive treatises from
w^hich I shall quote ? If it be right to advocate such checks
— and that is why I say that on the decision of this question
depend all the other propositions — it must be in language
which shall be intelligible to the people whom you want to
reach, and at a price at which they can buy it. It must be
widely spread, for it is not to the few, but to the many, that
the misery comes of crowding — from the many births of the
poor — the crowding of people, jostling each other out of life
in the search for employment, and the crowding into narrow
dwellings, where disease, vice, squalor, and misery attend
them. And it must be plainly put, because they are igno-
rant— very ignorant, because they are poor. They are
ignorant because the misfortune of their life has made them
so. They have to rise early, and work till they are tired,
and then some of you who have opportunities for culture
and recreation to which you can turn with intelligent plea-
sure, you may ask me why some of these men go to the beer-
house, or waste their money in the gin-palace ? But if your
homes were wretched and miserable ; if you were crowded
as I have seen hundreds and thousands of men and women
crowded in different parts of the country — three, four, five, or
six in one room, something like that described in Bishop

174

Fraser's report. Let us take the case of a miner, for example,
who has gone down into the mine at four o'clock in the
morning and works there till eleven, as they do, in a tempe-
rature higher than your Turkish bath in Jermyn Street..
He has come out, clogged at every part of the skin with
coal-dust and dirt. His home — we will suppose it is a hot
day Uke this — is dirty, the floor is dirty, the drainage of the
village is bad, there are a few pit cottages together, and
the refuse and filth is in front and behind. Do you
wonder that he runs to the public-house, driven away
by the misery of the home, and yet you tell me
that it is immoral to try to do something to prevent the
crowding of these little mouths, that by their hungry needs,
drive away everything like comfort from the home. If you
give a verdict against us it should be with grave consideration
as to whether the course we are taking is moral or immoral.
And then I admit that such advice is liable to be misused
by the criminal classes. I have in memory one of Chambers''
Encyclopaedias of Useful Information for the People,'"' in
which, deaJing with the human frame, the writer points
out where it might be extremely easy to destroy life. Un-
questionably that passing into the hands of many persons
for three-halfpence would enable them to commit murder, but
this pamphlet, passing into the hands of hundreds of thou-
sands would enable them to avoid calamities which result
in disease and death. Such hypothetical or possible misuse
cannot make the ground for an indictment for misdemean-
our. To say that some time or other such people may dO'
something we have not recommended under circumstances
we have not contemplated, cannot make a ground for indict-
ing us here. I now submit that it is impossible to advocate
sexual restraint after marriage amongst the poor without
such medical or physiological instructions as may enable
them to comprehend the advocacy and utilise it. Of what
use is it to take a man or woman, totally uneducated, and
to tell them their duty, unless you show them how to per-
form it. The telegraph is an admirable means of communi-
cating from one country to another : but suppose you took
a labourer or his wife into the operating room and showed
them the apparatus for working the electric machine ; they
could not comprehend it, to them it would be useless ; you
must give them the information which would enable them to
turn it to account. If it is right to advocate checks on popu-
rition^ it cannot be wrong to teach the poor hov/ to apply such

175

checks. I now submit the next question, and I shall use the
words of Justice Mellor, in the case of the Queen against
HickHn." Does this pamphlet, in such physiological details,
go beyond what is necessary or legitimate ? I reduce it into
four propositions : one, that over-population is a cause of im-
morality, and that which hinders over-population hinders
immorality, and, therefore, its advocacy cannot be with intent
to corrupt and deprave. I submit upon that, that to restrain the
population after marriage necessitates giving to the poor
and to the ignorant, from whom the bulk of the population
springs, the information which shall enable them to compre-
hend and utilise these propositions. I submit to you that
in this pamphlet there is not a single word which is unne-
cessary or which is illegitimate, or vv^hich goes beyond what
is absolutely necessary for instructing the poor and ignorant.
I hope I shall succeed in establishing that, and if I do so I
shall with confidence ask a verdict at your hands. I am
sorry to say that I have a very wearisome task before me,
which Avill not only be wearisome to myself but which, I am
afraid, must necessarily be wearisome to you. For I have
got to go through the whole of this pamphlet, except the
portions gone through by my co-defendant, not one of which
I shall touch ; and I shall have to make out to you, and I
believe I shall succeed in doing so, that there is not a
solitary syllable on which the Solicitor-General can put his
hands v/hich is not chastely, carefully written, and pains-
takingly put, in the view of avoiding any sort of morbid
excitement, any sort of improper allurement or enticement ;
and if, during this speech, I shall be occasionally using
words which may seem to you better avoided, I will beg
you to think that I feel to the fullest the responsibility
resting upon me, and that I will try to use no word that is
unnecessary in submitting to you the proposition that in
this pamphlet there is not a word, so far as the sexual
details are concerned, which may not be found in works of
the highest class. I shall take work by work ; I don't know
whether, my lord, you would like to have them as I quote
from each work. I have the publisher of each book present
in court. I shall ask you, gentlemen, having your books
before you, to mark upon the copies of your pamphlets the
passages to which I shall draw your attention. The work
from which I am now about to quote is " The Functions
and 'Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in Childhood,
Youth, Adult Age, and Advanced Life, considered in their

176

Physiological, Social, and Moral Relations, by William
Acton.'' This was published by Messrs. Churchill, the
eminent publishers of New Burlington Street, and has
gone through a large number of editions. I will refer
you first to page 8 of the Knowlton pamphlet. You will
remember that my co-defendant left unread the last para-
graph on that page. I will now quote from Acton.
He speaks of young men " who have arrived at puberty
and whose innocence has been preserved from unfortu-
nate initiation. Their disposition becomes sour, impatient,
and sad. They fall into a state of melancholy." (Mr.
Eradlaugh here read pages 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 of
Mr. Acton's book.) He then goes on to describe in the
strongest language the evils that result from a life of celibacy,
and then referring to the last paragraph on the page, I bring
you to the part which one has some little difficulty in dealing
with, in Acton's own words, which are so much stronger and
so very much more terrible than anything which occurs in
this Knowlton pamphlet, where he describes the disease
dealt with by Knowlton, where he describes the exaggeration
of the fears of the person and of his sufferings when his
feelings are played upon by improper people, and, where he
puts it just as Knowlton puts it, and in precisely the same
fashion, except that Knowlton is careful and chaste in the
extreme in the language he uses. And then, dealing still
with the same subject, he speaks of the necessity for giving
instructions an this to boys. I am quoting now from the
thirteenth page of Acton. He says — I have been often
urged by parents and schoolmasters to draw up a plan which
might be of service in teaching them properly to address
children, as well as boys." (Mr. Bradlaugh read, at length,
from pages 14 and 15 of Acton's work and also from page
136.) And on pages 65 and 73 and thence to page 80
Dr. Acton deals with some of the terrible evils arising from
■celibacy in language which I find it difficult here to go riglit
through to you, but respecting which I am placed in the
greater difficulty that at some other period in the case I may
be told that I had no right to call witnesses to prove this
publication or to put it into your hands so that you may
jead it for yourselves. Acton in some eight or nine pages,
from 65 to 73, deals with the whole of the points on pages 8
and 9 of Knowlton, and also with the whole of the points
on pages 44 and 45, and I urge to you that the language of
Knowlton's summary on this sad topic, if judged by Acton,

177

is as careful, as chaste, as thoughtful, and as delicate as it
is possible for language to be. I come next to page 1 2 of
the Knowlton pamphlet, because there seems to be some
suggestion that the first five lines of the Knowlton pamphlet
were specially indelicate, and on that I will refer you to
pages 115 to 138 of Acton. There the language of Acton
is just as precise, except that it is more full, so that, to use
the words of Alderman Figgins, into whose hands I put the
book when pleading before this case was committed for
trial, it would seem as if Acton had taken his words, not as
Alderman Figgins said, from Knowlton — it was impossible
that Knowlton could have taken from Acton, because
Knowlton published 30 years before Acton — but that both
must have taken from some common source, which source
I believe I have discovered through the aid of Mr. Bohn
and which is a work now in the library of the British
Museum. Curiously in the works of Acton, Carpenter,
Kirke, and Churchill, it is evident that they have all taken,
along with Knowlton, from some common and unacknow-
ledged source. The description is however much stronger
in Acton, the difference being that Acton had to write for
boys and men, whilst I am urging to you that Knowlton
wrote a work for women. Acton is more special in his
references to the male organs than is Knowlton. Knowlton
limits himself entirely to a description of the repro-
ductive organs in the woman, giving only the most general
of references to the functions of man, because it was
not necessary to his object. Now, it may be said, and in
fact it was said by the counsel for the prosecution before the
magistrate : " Oh! but Acton's book is a book simply meant
to be limited to medical students," or, to use the words of
the learned Solicitor-General, only by those in some medical
college, or medical school. But on the contrary, in page 2 r
of Acton — and I may tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that I
have furnished more than six weeks ago a list of all the
books to which I shall have to refer to the prosecution ; and
in the case of this book and the two next to which I shall
refer, I have given this to them with the references all care-
fully marked for comparison with the comparison passage in
Knowlton ; so much do I rely ®n the strength of my case —
Acton says that he means this book to be circulated. He
says : — " I would not have that exotic virtue which is kept
from the chill blast." And he urges the necessity for in-
structing the young on sexual questions for the purpose of

avoiding Immorality. Now, the learned Solicitor-General
talked of the extreme minuteness with which the female organs
were described, and to the mind of the learned Solicitor-
General that seemed to convey an absolute proof that the
book was written for the purpose of depraving and corrupt-
ing the public mind. And as the learned Solicitor-General
has had Acton's book, or, at least, those who instruct him
have had it, and he knows from my own written notices that
it is one of those on which I rely, he has doubtless read the
paragraph from which, in his presence, I will now read to you,
as being the completest answer to his allegation these lines :
(Mr. Bradlaugh then read from Dr. Acton, pp. 114 and 115).
He goes on to say that he deals with these things not for
the purpose of depraving and corrupting the public mind,
but because he considers it is necessary to point them out
for the purpose of avoiding evil habits and for the cure of
disease, against which his book is directed. I am obliged
to press that upon you, because this minute particularity was
specially alleged as an illustration of what I think the
learned Solicitor-General called the abominable filth" to be
found in Knowlton's book. Well, the book is published by
Churchill. It has been said that two blacks do not make
one white, and I do not want to urge that plea. I urge that
neither book is a book which ought to be attacked under
the law. I urge that impurity is not to be found either in
Acton or in our book, and that both are written for the pur-
pose of promoting morality, and not for the purpose of
depraving morals ; but having to deal with the sexual
functions, you are obliged to use the words which will in-
dicate them for the purpose of making the instruction
clear. 1 will now refer you to page 16, which is one of
the incriminated portions of the pamphlet, and I will call
your attention to page 142 of Acton, the page furnished to
the prosecution six weeks ago, and which they have had the
fullest opportunity of considering. I must read this lan-
guage because it gives you the means of judging of how far
in these five lines which I shall ask you to mark, how far
they have been distorted by the prosecution, and used in an
improper and unfair way. (Mr. Bradlaugh then read from
Acton, page 142, and commented on the character and
effect of the illustrations used by Acton.) If you take the
words of Knowlton and the words of Acton and compare
them, I cannot understand how any man could have thought
it necessaiy to lodge an indictment against the former,

179

1<:nowing that it was impossible, under ordinary circum-
:stances, for poor women to get the necessary knowledge
before it was too late, and to avert the misery which was
certain to ensue if they were allowed to remain in ignorance,
and that the author had made his language as chaste as it
was possible for anyone to make it. I will take you now to
the analysis on page i6, which has also been urged as part
of the immorality. I think of the words of the learned
Solicitor-General, "the enormous filth of this book," and
here you find that only a few of the baldest lines are given :
a few lines in a pamphlet which the Solicitor-General himself
had the justice to say had not the faintest semblance of
vulgarity, while Acton is not only full in his details, but actually
gives printed figures to illustrate his meaning. The Solicitor-
General may say ^4t is published for medical students," but it is
advertised and described in Messrs. Churchill's catalogue, and
anybody may buy it for himself across the counter, or he may get
it by sending postage stamps. And Messrs. Churchill have not
been slow to utilise this prosecution, by sending out circulars
specially refeiring to one of these works used by me, in
•order to increase the sale. I do not complain of that,
because I believe the books are useful and instructive pub-
lications and intended to promote public morality. But I
say it is a horrible thing to put us in danger of imprisonment
for giving that information to the poor, which may with im-
punity be given to the rich. I now take you to page 1 7 of the
Knowlton Pamphlet, to which I will draw your attention. Not
«nly does Acton (177 to 184) say all that Knowlton says, but he
gives plates in order to describe the subject, so that there
should be no mistake about it. If you hold up the one
against the other, the book of Acton far out-Herods Herod,
as against that of Knowlton. As I may not have another
opportunity of having the learned Solicitor-General to listen
to what I L^y, I will draw his attention to a book circulated
by the Government of which he has the honour to be the
legal adviser. Acton, I say, is purity itself compared with
the books that have been issued for girls' schools by the
Government, in the schools at Kensington and the schools
under the Science and Art Department, wherein are used the
works of Carpenter and of Kirke with plates larger than
these, with descriptions fuller than these, with an analysis
more complete than these. I say that when a descrip-
tion far much more voluptuous than anything in Knowlton
is put into the hands of girls by order of the Government

M 2

i8o

of which he is the legal adviser, how can he say that that is
filth in my case which ten thousand times magnified becomes
chaste instruction in theirs ? Still keeping you on the same
page 17, you will find a subject discussed, which you see care-
fully stated in Knowlton, discreetly stated in Knowlton, and
which you also find stated in Acton, page 180, I do not say-
without care and discretion, but comparatively stated with
an enormous deal of fulness. You will also find the same
thing, as I shall show you presently, in the work of Kirke,
which is circulated in boys' schools and girls' schools, and
also in this work of Carpenter, which, as shown by the certi-
ficate in it, was given away as a prize at Greenwich by Sir
John Lubbock, Bart., M.P. ; and the Right Hon. the
Recorder of the City of London, who charged the
jury against me, has given away, as a prize, the very book I
have in my hand. Carpenter's " Human Physiology." I
say that, compared with these works, the details in Knowlton:
which have been quoted, are chaste and delicate, and are
the most carefully-made summary that it is possible for a
man to write who wanted to tell the people as much as he
could in short compass, so as to give them sufficient informa-
tion for the purpose. Still keeping on the same page of the
pamphlet, I bring you down now to the part treating on the
changes at puberty. On that, I may refer you to the language,
which I shall read to )ou from Acton, page 25. Now, while
the language in Knowlton is very quiet, you will find, when we
come to deal with Kirke and Carpenter, that if the language
were intended — which going into the hands of boys and
girls of the Science and Art Department, I do not believe
it is — to have the effect of depraving the morals, it certainly
might be supposed to have that effect from glowing descrip-
tions of the comely figure of the opposite sex, and the
attractions which the changes after puberty produce. These
are omitted by Knowlton, because it is no part of his busi-
t ness to give such exciting descriptions. He merely wants
I to give the information which shall prevent men and women
I being surrounded by a large number of starving children^
' If the "filth," the "allurements," are to be found in the
prize books issued by the Government, the representative
of which is pleading for your verdict against me here, they
are not to be found in my pamphlet. I ask you to look at
the dry way in which in the line and a half Knowlton states
the fact which is necessary, and the fuller way in which you
have it here, occupying considerable space. Do not under-

i8i

stand me as putting any sort of insinuation upon Acton, who
wrote that he meant his book to go into schools, and who is
now dead ; do not let me be supposed to insinuate either
that he would think he was writing a work that was filthy,
or that he would imagine any one else would think it was
filthy. I doubt myself whether, apart from the atmosphere
of a law court where it was necessary to win a verdict, the
calmer judgment of the Solicitor-General would not feel that
the word was unfairly used against a book which he himself
describes as entirely free from the faintest trace of vulgarity.
How the two ideas can coincide in the learned Solicitor-
General's mind is, to me, a problem that I am unable to
solve, not having had that high legal training which enables
me to misunderstand the case of my antagonist when it is
necessary I should do so in order to misrepresent him.
You will find that Acton says in page 4, that this point of
which he speaks and which the learned Solicitor-General
describes as being part of the filth Ought to be explained
to the youngest child." He says, "We must recollect
that the child has never been taught." And
that which Dr. Acton thought ought to be explained
to the youngest child in schools, the learned Soli-
citor-General coming here, asks you to correct me for
circulating, at the same time having himself been a law
officer of the Government which does send that kind of
instruction into the schools — which not only does that, but in
its syllabus on " animal physiology," says to the children :
You are to be examined on the subject of reproduction, and
are to give answers to *the structure of the ovum and of
the spermatozoon. The process of yelk division. The
formation of the blastoderm and the development therefrom
of the body of the embryo, with amnion, allantois, and yelk
sac. The nature of the chorion, of the decidua, and of the
placenta. The mode in which the foetus is nourished. The
development of the heart and the foetal circulation. The
changes in the circulation which take place at birth. The
lacteal glands and lactation. The modifications in the pro-
portions of the body from birth to adult age.'" And now I
will ask the learned Solicitor-General, how are children in
these schools to explain what these things mean, without
much more complete instruction and full detail than even
Knowlton can give ? Carpenter gives the detail, Kirke gives
it, Chavasse gives it, Marion Sims gives it, Graily Hewitt gives
it, Kennet gives it, and a large number of other writers give

l82

it to you, and how are you to examine children at all without
giving them this knowledge ? You are to discuss and be pre-
pared to answer, on the process of yelk division, the nature
of the ovum and the placenta, the mode in which the foetus^
is nourished, the development of the foetal germs, &c., and
how are your boys and girls to do that in your schools unless
you give them this knowledge ? This is a syllabus for your
science and art schools, issued by the Government, and
prepared for their instruction, and they are referred for that
instruction to the works of Carpenter, and to the works of
Kirke, the works on which I am going to rely to make out
more fully that which I am dealing with here. You come
next, still on the same page 17, and if you, gentlemen of
the jury, do not think it too much trouble to mark the pages
as I go on, I will undertake not to leave you a single word
by the time I have finished my speech which is not marked
with a black line, as corroborated from these authors at least
' half a dozen times over, and that out of the very books
authorized by the Government and circulated and put
into the hands of the boys and girls whom the learned
Solicitor-General deplored anything of this kind reaching.
You will find a description given which is under the
last sentence. I read to you of the effect of impotency upon,
certain classes of people, and I can read to you the words
of Acton, of page 120 in his book, which you can compare
with the words of Knowlton which you have in your hands,,
remembering that the prosecution have had all these books
in their hands for comparison for six weeks. I ask you
whether you are to imagine that Dr. Acton — and it is not of
him alone : I take him because I do not think that even a
Solicitor-General ever urged anything against his morality —
this book has been circulated widely by Messrs. Churchill,
who have the character in London of being amongst pub-
lishers par excellence the head of the branch of the business
they pursue. I put it to you^ whether indicted at common law,,
and measuring common law as common usage, whether you
will find that to be depraving and corrupting in Knowlton^
when published by me, and at the same time find it to be
neither depraving nor corrupting in Acton, when published
by Churchill? And the Solicitor-General cannot shelter him-
self by saying that it is a medical work only intended for
medical students, for Acton himself says his book is intended
for young people ; that its knowledge may, if possible, prevent
evils which if not prevented in youth can never be remedied

i83

in after age, evils which Knowlton tries in very, very
chastest language to put to the poor and the rough
with whom he has to come in contact, and which evils
he tries to warn them against and prevent ; yet the
learned Solicitor-General says that this is a book issued
to deprave and corrupt the public mind, and that, in
the words of the indictment, it is an indecent, a lewd,
and a bawdy book. These, gentlemen of the jury,
are some of the adjectives which are piled on me, and
of which you are asked to find me here guilty. I will
now, if you please, take you for one moment, still
on the same page, to a reference at the very end of the last
pajagraph ; I may refer to the end of the complete paragraph
before it, because, if I understand the Solicitor-General's
argument at all, and I am not quite sure that I always did,
I find him there putting it to you as a sort of evidence of
the immorahty of this book, for he refers to the delight
which might happen in the gratification of the sexual
passions. Compare what Acton says (page 154) with the
quiet, chaste description in Knowlton, and then, gentle-
men, I ask you can you tell me that this book treating
on the same subject has been issued for the purpose of
depraving and corrupting the public mind — whether the
learned Solicitor-General made a mistake and only
read the works of the dilTerent doctors instead of the
pamphlet he was charged to prosecute? Whether he
read Carpenter's " Physiology," now issued to children
under his own authority, instead of my pamphlet, in order
to find a strong description for it, I do not know;
but I will appeal to you, step by step, whether such con-
demnation is possible here. Now, gentlemen, I will bring
you to page 18 of the Knowlton pamphlet, and ask you to
take your pencils and then Usten to Acton, pages 96 and 97.
I will ask you to bear those words in mind when people are
talking to you of celibacy, or of restraint after marriage with-
out cohabitation. And the learned Solicitor-General thinks
this ignorance, which Knowlton and Acton both deplore,
ought to be allowed to continue. At any rate the learned
Solicitor-General thinks that the education should not be
given to poor people at a cheap price. He would have it
limited to circles where they would be unable to get it,
sold at a price at which they cannot purchase it. They are
to suffer in misery — they are to feel the pain of their diseases,
they are to know nothing of the possible remedies ; they,

i84

with their 13s. or 14s. a week, are to consult a physician to
whom they are unable to pay the guinea fee, and whom from
their agricultural parish they are unable to reach. Gentle-
men of the jury, I trust your verdict will be a deliverance
from the perpetuation of such a state of misery as this.
Now, then, at page 20 of the Knowlton pamphlet, and I take
you to the bottom of the last complete paragraph on trans-
mitted peculiarities ; I will ask you whether Knowlton has
not, in two lines and a half, a quiet, delicately worded
summary of those facts which Acton considers it necessary
to teach. On page 22 of the Knowlton pamphlet your
attention is called to the paragraph beginning " In relation
to these objections;'^ and to page 24, where Knowlton speaks of
the same subject, Acton writes of it in a far fuller manner
(pages 90, 91, 142, 149, 150, and 157). Take and compare
then pages 22 and 24 of Knowlton with those of Acton,
remembering the words of the learned Solicitor-General,
That the sexual act was described with a minuteness and
particularity that could only have been done for the purpose
of corrupting and depraving the pubHc morals.'' I cannot
understand how it is that the learned Solicitor-General can
have said this, when he had reference to all these books
from which I am quoting six weeks ago. Why, I have done
what I suppose no other defendant in a criminal prosecu-
tion ever did. I have furnished to the prosecution a list of
the whole of the books (no sort of compulsion being on me
to do so, I might have hidden my case from them as much
as I could, and as they have hidden their case from me) ;
but, to put it frankly, I did hope that common sense and
common decency would have prevented even a Solicitor-
General from having attributed to me that which, having
fairly shown to be applicable only to others, he ought to
have known should not have been attributed to me at all.
Carpenter's work is a book which the learned Solicitor-
General's Government puts in the hands of children ! Lis-
ten, and then compare this to the words given by Knowlton
on page 22. (Extract read from Carpenter as given in
Acton, page 24). Now, compare that with the three or four
lines of Knowlton, and tell me whether Knowlton is not
chaste and delicate beside this book, which is put into the
hands of girls and boys by the Government, which is repre-
sented here by the learned Solicitor-General as one of its
law officers. I ask you how can you convict me with this
directory of the Science and Art Department of the Com-

i8s

mittee of the Council of Education before you, telling tho
children, on pages 134 and 135, that this Carpenter's
Human Physiology is a book in which they are
to be examined for honours, and which they are
expected to know all about. It is simply monstrous
to put the words of that indictment to me at all —
it is monstrous to tell me that Knowlton is filth,''
that he states the act with minute particularity,
when, gentlemen, if I do not succeed in winning your assent
I shall have to show you in works — in other works by the
highest medical men — medical men whom I would rather
call to tell their own story, but that I am afraid, my lord,
would feel it his duty to rule that such evidence could not be
put in, and I am reluctantly striving to make myself my
own witness at the risk, I am afraid, sometimes of sorely
wearying you. But, if I do not give these statements now,
I probably never can give them at all, and I am bound to
cover every line of this pamphlet, which can only have been
attacked in the manner it has been by a person knowing
nothing about medicine or, having the knowledge, wilfully
twisting it for the purpose of injuring someone. Here is
Carpenter's " Manual of Physiology," published by Churc-
hill, and also Kirke's " Handbook of Physiology," pubhshed
by James Murray. These are the books which are put in
the hands of girls — are given to them as prizes and as books
in which they are to be examined. I do not want to use
words for which my lord might rebuke me. I do not want
to use one wrong phrase, but I am pleading here for my
liberty. I am pleading for my future. I am pleading for my
reputation. It is not pleasant to be indicted as the utterer
of an obscene book. From a charge of theft those
who know you will acquit you ; from a charge of murder,
even, it must be proved ere odium attaches ; but the charge
of obscenity is one of those sort of charges which is so
difficult to deal with. The very wording of the charge casts
a shadow. There is mud enough left on the garment how-
ever much you may wash it ; after filth has been so freely
thrown some of it is sure to stick — some one is sure to see
the stain of it ; some of those who have always malice to
see these things kin to their lesser selves. On page 22, of
Knowlton, you find in four lines an attempt to state the
subject of satyriasis as chastely as possible, with nothing that
could be offensive, without anything which could shock any
well-regulated mind, or go in any sense beyond the instruc-

i86

tion intended to give ; you find here that which Dr. Acton, I
will not suggest unwisely, thought it necessary to state with
a degree of fulness, which — while I may not use the words of
the learned SoHcitor General, ^*it gives me pain to repeat" —
I will say it gives me pain to know that there are such terrible
diseases to be dealt with, but most of all to know they
prevail from ignorance and from misunderstanding of physical
laws. I shall be within the correction of my lord, who has
travelled many assizes, and I appeal to him whether there
are not, at nearly every agricultural assize, cases which the
press wisely refrains from reporting, crimes which though
existing, English language hesitates to characterize ; whether
they do not come before him, arising from this very satyriasis
among the poorer classes of wretched, ill-fed, ignorant people,
who if they had been instructed earlier in their lives
and wisely trained, would have been probably saved
from such a distortment of their nature. (After full com-
parison of pages 2 2 and 23 of Knowlton and page 157
of Action, Mr. Bradlaugh went through pages 25 and 27,
and then said — Now I go to page 35 upon which the learnea
Solicitor-General expended a very large amount of denuncia-
tion, and the denunciation was then coupled with the word
cayenne." I have heard Frenchmen denounce Cayenne*
because it is a criminal colony to which some of the political
convicts are transported, but I hear for the first time in this
court that the suggestion that cayenne as a possible remedy
or a possible alleviation in some cases of disease can be
associated with obscenity and denounced as filthy; and if I fail
to answer the learned Solicitor-General on that point, it will
only be because I utterly fail to comprehend what he meant
when he was putting it to you. There is a still stronger
remedy on the same page, that of cantharides, and if you
will look at page 132 of Acton — and I shall substantiate
this over and over again from the works of other physicians
— I shall show you the same thing, as to cantharides and
cayenne ; indeed, there is not a single prescription in this
book of Knowlton's which is not over and over again g ven
in all the authorities which I have before me — given with
full language as to the diseases, and full details as to the
remedies. Does cayenne become obscene put into a
pamphlet and published at sixpence? and is it all right
when advocated in a medical book published at thirty shillings
or two guineas ? Oh, gentlemen, I cannot believe you will
stultify yourselves in any such fashion. Whether the Solicitor-

iS7

General's experience in criminal cases ever included cayenne
in any fashion which might convey to him any idea of an
obscene kind, I do not know, and I should not have
dreamed of trying to answer it, had I not heard it put in a
fashion which was to me utterly inexplicable, as part of the
ground of the indictment against me. The same things I
say as to the remedies on page 35 will apply as to the
remedies on page 37. You will find Acton, over and over
again, and at great length, showing the effect of study and
excess. This chapter as to sterility has been so much
spoken on that I must still ask leave to use a Httle more of
Acton's own words, only regretting that the learned counsel
for the prosecution did not think it right to state at least
some things which he knew might have fairly been said for
the defence. I probably have utterly miscomprehended
English jurisprudence. I had known that in civil cases,
that it was not considered sometimes unfair to leave
the advocate for the defence to make out his case, but I
had thought that in a criminal case, the second legal leader
in England, matched against a man and a woman, with
the knowledge before him put into the hands of his clients,
for six weeks before the commencement of the trial and
actually furnished to them by the defendants — I had thought
that there was some pressure of honour upon him to put
to you in pleading to you for your verdict against us, at
least, a little of what we contended for on our side. It
was hardly fair to take this chapter, and this was the one
that had so " pained " him — it was hardly fair to do that
without saying (in justice to the defendants) that they had
furnished him with the whole number of books showing the
identity of the Knowlton pamphlet with what medical and
English doctors of the highest repute had written. You
will remember the Solicitor-General's words, " American doc-
tors"— ''perhaps some English doctors" — "God forbid" —
were the words of the Solicitor-General, " that there should
be any writing — such things," If he did not know that we
were going to read these authorities it was only because the
solicitors who instructed him did not perform their duty—
nd I will not do the solicitor to the city the injustice ta
think that he did not furnish to the Solicitor-General all the
detailed references I had written to him, and given him,
with every page carefully marked six weeks ago ; the learned
counsel appeared before the magistrates against me, with
some of my references in their hands. And I ask you.

i83

is it fair for the Solicitor-General to trust to our want of
ability, or to our want of memory, to make good our case
in important details of the kind ? You, gentlemen of the
jury, as my lord has well said, you are sitting there as
arbiters in this case. It is you I have to convince, and from
you I have to win a verdict, and is it fair that the learned
Solicitor-General should have left out the whole of these
facts, which he must have known if he had been properly
instructed? At any rate, I know the junior counsel knew it,
because I myself saw in their hands on the last occasion
of appearing before the magistrate my analysis of Acton,
furnished them by myself I do not think that that
suppression is quite right. I can scarcely deem it quite
honourable. I quite admit that the learned Solicitor-
General is fully occupied by questions to him much more
important than the simple one of whether I shall go to jail
or not ; he has his Parliamentary duties to occupy his time,
he has his other important and profitable engagements, but
I do not think he should have come here and suppressed
and kept hidden from you these matters of our defence
which have been so carefully furnished to the prosecution ;
for when I afterwards found that I should have to use
one or two books not included in the first list, I wrote
to the City Solicitor acquainting him with the fact, and giving
them the authorities, so that in no case can myself or my
co-defendant be said to be acting otherwise than honourably
and openly. We may be wrong, but, at any rate, we have
fought fairly. Without wishing to use any words from which
my lord would think that I have exceeded the privilege
given to a defendant to plead for his own justification, I am
bound to repeat that I do not think it was entirely fair to
conceal all these things from you. I did give the prosecu-
tion clear notice that Kirke and Carpenter were used
in schools, that other works to which I have referred you
were so used, and yet the harsh language came from the
Solicitor-General as if these things had never been heard of
in the history of the English people except in the Knowlton
pamphlet. Well, now I come to page 36, on sterility. Now
I ask you to look at that while I read to you from page 192
of Acton. I might continue them ad nauseam, I am in
this difficulty : I do not want to read to you to weary you,
to prejudice you against me, but I am trying to prove my
case. I must read enough to show you how utterly unre-
liable is all that the learned Sohritor-Ge.neral has said about

Knowlton's particularity of detail ; I ask you, are not these
words as completely chaste as it is possible to be, if he is to
deal with the question at all ? Then, however, on the same
page, 36 of Knowlton, treating of premature, and espe-
cially solitary gratification, I read to you on that from page
28 to page 31 of Acton, where he goes on at length page
after page, and shows the evils, including insanity, which
arise from this. Knowlton has dealt with this sad phase in
the most quiet way, the most simple way, the briefest way
human pen can touch it, and yet the learned Solicitor-
General indicts me for publishing obscenity ! The same,
in order to prevent repetition, may be said in reference to
the Knowlton pamphlet, page 44, at the end. I will try as
much as possible to prevent repetition, if I can. If you will
mark what I mean in that page it will save me again refer-
ring to it. But I will ask you, as indeed I think — I
am not quite sure, if not in that, at any rate in another
part — my co-defendant did ask you, whether the
language at the bottom of page 36 is the language of an
indecent writer. He speaks of intemperance in the use of
spirits, and says, even a " moderate use of spirits, and even
tobacco in any form, have some effect. It is a law of the
animal economy, that no one part of the system can be
stimulated, or excited, without an expense of vitality, as it
is termed." I ask, is that the language of a man who wants
to make people immoral? He does not teach them to
drink and smoke in excess, but rather speaks against both
altogether, and the Solicitor-General insults this man — and
I stand here in his place, I acquit myself of no responsi-
bility for his words. He has been dead for more than a
quarter of a century, and your verdict, though it may touch
his memory, cannot touch him. It is myself, and my co-
defendant, who are pleading here ; I seeking to win your
verdict with all the more force, because the advocacy of
these views have been mine for so long and hers for so
short a time, and she has to pay, with me, the penalty of
mculcating what we both believe to be absolutely, and in
every sense, the reverse of what the learned Solicitor-General
says. The Solicitor-General talked of the colouring ; if we
wanted to retort, was not the colouring somewhat in
the Solicitor-General's speech ? You may think that we
have done unwisely in trusting our own tongues to reply to
the trained ability matched against us; but we have the
confidence, whether right or wrong (a confidence which we
4

190

still have), that the liberty of the press, in every age of the
history of this country, has been conserved by English juries,
and my reading, at any rate, has always compelled me to
remember that, even in the worst of our times, when Soli-
citor-Generals' voices had more influence — I will not ven-
ture to say that the Solicitor-Generals themselves had a
higher ability, although some of the grandest names after-
wards known on the bench were amongst those — it has
been the jury that has always stood between the prisoner
and the power arrayed against him, and has given him a
deliverance from an intent which ought never to have
been alleged against him at all. Gentlemen, I am
inclined to leave Acton, although I have a very large
number of other passages marked right through, dealing
with the whole of pages 38 to 41, 42, 43 and 44, because I
shall only be repeating to you the same kind of language,
and if the learned Solicitor-General in his reply should ven-
ture to say to you that I did not read these passages because
they did not make out my case so strongly, then I will ask
you to ask him why it is that, having had from me the paged
references to Acton's book entirely in his own hands for so
long, he has not stated to you the slightest word about them.
There are one or two points which it is absolutely necessary
that I should briefly allude to, although I will not read them
at any greater length than I can help. One is on page 38,
where there is a reference to the exhaustive efforts of sexual
gratification, and I am obliged to allude to that because it
was one of the parts that the Solicitor-General said that he
alluded to with so much "pain." (Mr. Bradlaugh here read
from Acton, pages 93, 94, and 95.) Compare that with
the language of Knowlton, and then say, gentlemen, is not
the language of our pamphlet carefully chaste ? and you will
remember that the learned Solicitor-General, in his speech,
alleged to you that the happy gratification of the reproduc-
tive instinct was one of the most alluring, and most cal-
culated to deprave by its indecency. I now will only take
you for one moment to page 43, simply because, although I
might occupy a very long time still with Acton, I have so
many volumes before me that I am myself feeling that I may
be transgressing unduly upon your patience. I will take you
to the part of page 43, beginning " Begin temperately." Then
on pages 104 to 107, Acton says (Mr. Bradlaugh here read
a lengthy extract), and iVcton goes into the details of a large
number of cases to illustrate it. Now, I might occupy much

191

time with pages 43, 44, and 45, the whole of which is relied
in by the Solicitor-General as warranting your indictment
here. I might rely on an enormous number of quotations
from Acton to cover every word of these pages, but this is the
closing paragraph on page 45, to which I must allude,
because I understood the learned Solicitor-General to sug-
gest that these words on this were sufficient to warrant you
in finding a verdict of guilty of publishing a filthy book to
deprave and corrupt the public mind. I will read the words
of Knowlton, although they were read by the Solicitor-Gen-
eral. (Mr. Bradlaugh here read slowly the paragraph on p. 45.)
I avow, gentlemen, that I do not know what impression that
made upon your minds, nor do I know either what impres-
sion it made on the mind of his lordship, but I avow that it
seems to me that the whole of the argument of the learned
Solicitor-General was more than amply answered by his own
quotation. He has told you that this book for which we
are prosecuted is directed against marriage. It is said
that where distinct declarations are made regarding un-
married females, filthy and corrupt inuendoes are intended,
but in pages 84 and 85 of Acton we have the most dis-
tinct declarations of this character, and corroborations in
the most precise way of all that is put in Knowlton. I
have now, for one single moment, before I take up
another book, just to draw your attention to the character
of the book I have been quoting. It is a book published
by a man who was in his lifetime one who was accredited
with the highest medical reputation, a man against whom
either in his lifetime or afterwards there was never uttered
the slightest suspicion of quackery, nor was such an insinua-
tion ever urged. The person who reads this book will find
it to be full of very painful things. I do not know whether
my lord will think that I have the right to hand up to the
jury such books as I quote from, where these things

The Lord Chief Justice : No, I think not.

Mr. Bradlaugh : You think not, my lord. That being
so, I am prevented from putting in these books, and
I am afraid that I shall in consequence, in the duty
that lies before me, be obliged reluctantly, for the sake
of the argument, to go line by line through the con-
current statements in other books till I have succeeded
in impressing you with the defence upon which I have to
rely. I am unable to put these books into your hands
because

192

The Lord Chief Justice : Because tliey are not evi-
dence.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Just so, my lord, because they are not
evidence, and that being the case, I have only the oppor-
tunity of reading them to you as part of my speech. But if
I could hand you these books, or if I could put the authors
of them into the witness-box, I should be able to show you
conclusively that the charges made against this Knowlton
pamphlet cannot be sustained. What an unfair position,
then, am I in — what a position of difficulty compared with
that of the Solicitor-General, who might have told you all
these things, as well as saying the ill he did of this pamph-
let. I do not say this by way of making any complaint, for
since I am in this court I am willing to abide by its deci-
sion ; but I am simply making the remark because the rules
of the court prevent me putting before you these works, and
I am reduced simply to telling you in the best way I can
what they contain. I am sorry to be obliged to weary you,
and to detain you from your usual occupations, while I have
to go through book by book, of v/hich some parts are as
dreary as parts of books can be ; and had not the learned
Solicitor-General hurled the inuendo at us that we have
made a deliberate attempt to corrupt the public morals, it
vv^ould not be necessary for me to go through this pamphlet
line by line to show that its statements are simply chaste
abbreviations of those which are put at greater length, and
more elaborated in other works written by the highest phy-
sicians and openly sold by the most respectable publishers. I
only add one word in laying down Acton, if I may be
permitted to do so, and that is that as far as my
evidence is worth anything, there has never the slightest
attack been made upon it, and no charge of obscenity was
ever brought against it. The next book I shall refer to, not
being able to hand it up, is " Notes on Uterine Surgery,'*
by J. Marion Sims, which is published by the very respect-
able firm of Messrs. Hardwick and Bogue. Dr. Sims
was a graduate of a university, had obtained a large number
of very honourable distinctions, and held a very high posi-
tion in his profession, and although I am not permitted ta
put this in evidence, I wish you clearly to understand that I
am not quoting from some disreputable quack, or from some
person who, for his own ends, would write and circulate any
kind of obscenity. With this book I shall have to deal, step
by step, or at any rate with so much of it as I think will con-

193

vince you into the belief that there can be no such charge
as the obscenity or indecency maintained against Knowlton
after hearing what Sims has written, or if you are not con-
vinced of that, I shall not be able to comprehend the effect
of evidence, or at any rate I shall wonder that the plainest
possible statements that the English language is capable of
can produce upon different minds so different results. Let
me direct you to a paragraph on page 1 2 of the Knowlton
pamphlet. I trust you will bear with me now ; after the clear
and expUcit declaration of the Lord Chief Justice, that I
cannot put in this medical evidence, the necessity that lies
upon me in my speech to put fully before you everything
which will entitle me to win a verdict at your hands. I have
no wish, believe me, to keep you there a moment longer
than is absolutely necessary, still less have I the desire to act
in a manner unworthy of the fairness shown to us by the
Court ; but I am obliged, not only for myself, but also for
my co-defendant — who is in this entirely in my hands —
to do all that my poor wit will enable me to clear ourselves,
and I have no right to allow one thing to escape to bring
about the result. On the 12th page of the Knowlton pamphlet,
near the end, you note the paragraph (reading it), and I now
take you to page 323 and page 324 of Dr. Marion Sims.
(Mr. Bradlaugh here read some extremely strong passages.)
After that he gives — through several pages, and with great
detail — a large number of cases of this disease, and goes on
to describe all the operations of this kind which he has had
to perform for the purpose of dealing with this which the
learned Solicitor-General has put before you, and which he
has chosen to allege is part of the filth which we have
published. Dr. Sims enters upon this subject with great
fulness of detail. Turn now to page 13 of the pamphlet,
where Knowlton is dealing with the female reproductive
organs. The learned Solicitor-General laid great stress, in
his speech, on what he chose to call the obscene particu-
larity of detail ; but if I were able to put Sims into your
hands, I should, I think, be able to show you that here are
far fuller details, and that they are accompanied by a plate
of everything described, in order that it should be more
certainly understood. I will read the language of Sims,
however, and ask you to compare it with the modest
reference in Knowlton. (Mr. Eradlaugh then read page 181
and page 234 from Dr. Sims.) And then he spends exactly
two pages and a half, which I will not weary you with, in

194

describing technically the whole of its position, its form, and
its size, as v/ell as thickness and capacity. I will still ask
you to follow me carefully. We are still at page 12 of
Knowlton and 181 in Sims. If you will look at Knowlton,
you will see the exact correctness of the description. (Here
Mr. Bradlaugh read another long extract, and held towards
the jury box the illustrated plates in Sims' .book). , Go
now, a few lines lower on, to page 13 of Knowlton, while I
read a piece from page 204 of Sims. (Mr. Bradlaugh
read another extract.) This subject is referred to by
Knowlton on page 14, and on pages 181-2 of Sims; 3^ou
will find how accurately he has written. I want, here, to
press upon you — because it has been expressly referred to
in the speech of the Solicitor-General in opening this case,
and may be again referred to when he comes to reply, for
he has the right of using every word in this pamphlet
against us — that the charge made against Knowlton presses
much more heavily upon Sims, for not only is there an
enormously long description here, but, if I were able to
hand this book up to you, I should show you that it is
accompanied by a picture with the end in view of making
the description more comprehensible. That which is put here
in Sims with a bold completeness of detail, is delicately and
chastely abbreviated by Knowlton, and yet you are called
upon to believe that I and my co-defendant have set out with
the intention of corrupting the public mind by publishing a
pamphlet stating the fact in that guarded way. (Mr.
Bradlaugh read further from Sims, page 182, and added),
Gentlemen, I will not attempt to weary you with the whole
of the pages, for it goes on to give every minutest detail :
and yet, when the same facts, which to prevent disease,
should be known by women, are so briefly stated in Knowlton,
they are characterised by the learned Solicitor-General as
filth, and I am prevented from showing you by evidence
that the pamphlet is a pure work of medical instruction.
Although I cannot help thinking that my case is one that
should meet with your sympathy, I will not complain as
to the disadvantage at which I am placed, for it is my
duty to accept the regulations of the court. On the same
page, I might read another extract, corroborating Knowlton
on this point, but I will leave that, gentlemen. I might
indeed occupy much more of your time v/ith this page,
but there is nothing in it which suggests sensual ideas to
my niind in reading it, although some filthy-minded

195

persons have tried to manufactiire a complaint — in using
the word lilthy I may have spoken too strongly — I will
say that people entirely ignorant of medicine and medical
works, or anything of the mass of detail that belongs
to them ; people who are only used to reading law books,
have the impertinence to come here and call scientific
facts filth. I avow I cannot understand how they can
have come to that conclusion from reading this array of
books (Mr. Bradlaugh here pointed to several piles
of marked medical works, arranged round him, ready
for reference), and if they have not read them, although
they had notice six weeks ago that I should refer to
them, it is more shameful still for the Solicitor General
to have used such language. I now bring you, gentle-
men, to page 15 of the pamphlet ; there you will find the
subject treated of is menstruation. Sims also treats on
the subject. (Mr. Bradlaugh here read at considerable
length, from pages 39, 40, and 139 of Sims). I am
endeavouring now^ to limit the words as much as possible
to those of Knowlton, leaving out as much I can. Sims
then goes on to give a large number of cases in illustra-
tion, which are painful, and adduces the reasons, wdth which
I need not trouble you, but contenting myself with
simply assuring you that Knowlton is chaste and delicate
compared with him. We now^ come to page 16 of the
pamphlet, and the same subject is spoken of on page 5 of Sims.
You will notice, gentlemen, the very slight reference to
pregnancy and menstruation, and the guarded way in which
it is put by Know^lton. Sims on page 29 and 30, and on pages
380 to 385, gives with most full details several unpleasant
cases wdiich he investigated. I am told that Knowlton goes
into minuteness of detail. I am surprised that the Soli-
citor could have ventured to say so if he had read this book.
Listen to a passage of pp. 384 and 385 of this book of Sims,
and tell me what you think. (Mr. Bradlaugh then read a
long extract from Sims.) Compare all that with the delicate
vmy in which Knowlton puts it — states the bare, actual facts.
I do not think that the book has had the effect upon the mind
of the Solicitor-General which it ought to have had, and I
urge that he was utterly unwarranted in alleging that it was
calculated and published for the purpose of corrupting the
public mind. We are still on the same page of Knowlton,
gentlemen.) Mr. Bradlaugh then verified further parts of
p. 16 by Sims, pages 361 and 367, in each case showing the

N 2

196

superior style of the Knowlton pamphlet, of which he then
took page 17. (The learned Solicitor-General talked of the
particularity of detail ; but if I had the power to put Dr.
Sims in the box, I could, I believe, show you that he goes
on to speak on all the same topics, accompanied on p. 363
by plates, clearly illustrative of their appearance, and when
the learned Solicitor-General speaks of filth, and I find in
the books of Carpenter, of Kirke, of Valentine, of Hilles,
the same sort of descriptions on this topic, accompanied by
similar plates, and that some of these books are put into the
hands of girls for instruction and study at schools regulated
from South Kensington, surely I have a right to complain
of the use of such expressions. Yet I am Indicted, and your
verdict is asked for against me for the minute particularity^
Avith which we put these things. I do not think that I will
weary you with the full description on p. 17, but if I could
put the book into your hands you would, I am sure, say
that the language of Knowlton is unmistakably most chaste
and delicate when read side by side with this, notwith-
standing the unsupported allegations of a Solicitor-General^
v/ho, perhaps, had not even read the pamphlet he vilified.
I will go on now to page 11, the second paragraph — it is-
the first complete paragraph about the middle of the page
— and refer you to page 340 of Sims, where I find similar
declarations uniformerly accompanied by matter which, when
I come to deal with pages 19 and 22 of Knowlton, I shall
have to read to you. (Mr. Bradlaugh read a long extract).
The same sort of remarks are made by Carpenter, by Kirke,
by Valentine, and in the Ladies' Own Companion,'' which
is issued by one of the most respectable homoeopathic
publishing firms in London, any of which can be bought
openly and without question. Any number of cases in
relation to this subject are given in the various books in
which young girls have to be examined. In the list of sub-
jects printed on the Government syllabus they have to deal
with this, and they are to comprehend the results incident to
pregnancy, and do you mean to tell me that the delicate
references to the same subject used in this Knowlton
pamphlet are fairly called filth," are more likely to corrupt
the public mind or to destroy public morality ? And how
shall I speak when I am indicted, may be punished, may be
sent to prison for doing so, and yet see all these unchallenged.
I come now to page 19, where Knowlton repeats the same
doctrines as are laid down in the paragraphs to which I have

197

referred. He then goes on to the question, difficult to treat
here and I am afraid I must give you a case preceding the
joaragraph in Sims which I have annotated in connection
with this in order not to be obHged to have to refer to the
subject again. I will on the same topic take you to page 22
of Knowlton, and ask you where he uses one word which is
impure, or puts one fact which leads you to think libidinously?
Sims, on 340, 341, and 342 gives a collection of cases.
Now I will ask you again, is not the language of Knowlton
chaste and delicate in the extreme compared with that ?
Dealing with the same subject on page 372, Sims precisely
states what Knowlton gives, and on page 197, still dealing with
the same subject, he puts the words still more plainly, and
he puts it that this is the medical view. If I were permitted
to do so I would show you the plate in this page by means
of which he describes exactly what he i!ieans, so that there
is no possibility of misunderstanding, and yet I am told by
the Solicitor-General, in this pamphlet I have given
currency to the most abominable hlth, minutely particular
details, calculated to corrupt the public mind. Can
that be so? Can the learned Solicitor-General have
used such language and yet have read this book by
Dr. Marion Sims, which I gave him notice, weeks ago,
I should have to refer to? We are still dealing w^ith
page 19 of the pamphlet and I go now to page 182
of Sims, where he speaks more plainly and less delicately.
{Mr. Bradlaugh read words.) I think I have now also dis-
posed of page 22 of Knowlton, and I need not refer to it
again. I come now to page 23, just after the words " John
Hunter," about the middle of the page, and go on to the
same subject on pages 25 and 26. I will read to you from
Sims, who, after long and minute details, gives another
series of plates, giving the fullest illustrative descriptions.
(Mr. Bradlaugh here read from pages 116, 119, 363, and
372, of Sims). The same facts, however, as you see, are
very guardedly and very quietly put by Knowlton at the
bottom of page 26. Compare this with the language of
Sims, and then say if Knowlton can be called indelicate. I
must also trouble you with the whole of the paragraph, be-
ginning page 29 of the Knowlton pamphlet. I am afraid I
am asking you to listen to rather too much from Dr. Marion
Sims, but, as I am prohibited handing you the book, I must
read some of the passages, or you would never imagine to
what extent they go. (Mr. Bradlaugh commenced reading

198

from page 35^ into 351). He goes on there to give an
enormously long description which I will not pain you vrdh,
and adds, on page 354, a plate of the foulest description,
according to the theory of the prosecution, v/hich, unfortu-
nately, I must not put into your hands. But plates almost
identical are put into the hands of boys and girls at school
for the purpose of enabling them to study these and kindred
subjects, and are even included among the list of prizes
distributed to them. Such facts, I say again, are by Knowlton
put in tlie simplest, most chaste, and delicate language, in
his pamphlet. I will now read you a paragraph in Sims, on
page 372, and refer you to the bottom of the same page in
Knowlton ; and on that I will also read you tv/o from pages
381 and 387 of Sims, in which is given, in language as
explicit as possible, all^that is so briefly said by Knoudton.
I will now take you to page 330 Knowlton, to the very last
three lines of the page, in which, having stated the plain
simple fact, you can easily compare his manner with the way
in which Sims treats it. ' He tells you how he visited his
patient, and how, at visit after visit, experiment after experi-
ment was resorted to to discover the best way of ascertaining
the facts. Hegoes on for something like two pages describing
that, and I ask you whether, assumingthe need of plates to aid
in the examination of these subjects, Knowlton is not again
and again far more chaste and cautious as to entering too-
minutely into extremely particular details ? I now come ta
the question of sterility, which is dealt with on page 34
and the hrst paragraph of chapter 3. Sims says, on page
216, not only that Knowlton gives an accurate summary in
a third of a line, but on this point he gives two plates for
the purpose of showing what he means. Then you will
find a fewer lines further down, on page 34 of the pamphlet,
and on that I will again refer you to the exact corroboration
to be found in the language used by Sims on page 39. (After
reading, Mr. Bradlaugh said.) I must here ask you to re-
member that the learned Solicitor-General, when pleading
against me, read a portion of the book on page 44 as one of
the most filthy suggestions w^hich he could conceive it pos-
sible to make in a publication. I am not myself unac-
quainted with medical technicalities, but I know the diffi-
culty without a trained technical skill to pass a criticism,
upon these dry questions, and to ma.ke out a case to you
which you will think sufficient ; but I venture to say tha,t
we find here much more of what the learned gentleman

199

calls filthy suggestions than in the pamphlet for which I
am indicted, and that, too, in a book not published by
any common quack, but written by a high authority, and
circulated by a publishing firm of the hrst-class. I say this
book is much more calculated to deprave. But this book
is circulated at a guinea or two, perhaps ; do you mean
to tell me that obscenity is measured by the price of a
book ? I am not pleading, let me crave to observe, that
two blacks make one white, and that because one book
is published, for which I am indicted, another book of a
similar character should not be allov/ed to be issued ; but I
am saying, and I do most earnestly contend, that it is un-
fair to prohibit the circulation of a book merely because it
is sold at a low price and distributed among the poor and
ignorant for the purpose of improving their minds and in
structing them in things they ought to know ; and I say
that I should not be held responsible for mere facts put in
as clear and chaste a way as they can be. I now refer you to
the language of SimxS on page 5. (Mr. Bradlaugh again read.)
Then let me ask you to read the paragraph on page 35 of
Knowlton, against which the learned Solicitor-General
directed so much of his choicest ire and indignation. You
will see that the authority quoted by Knowlton is Dr.
Dewees, and I may say that we have luckily just at the last
moment procured a copy of his works, for it has been out of
print a great number of years, and difficult to get. The
remedies given by Knowlton were given on his authority ;
and on page 144 Sims prescribes exactly the same remedies ;
among them tincture of guaiac. And, really, gentlemen, it
seems to me a little too much that you should send me out
of this court branded as a criminal, and commit me to gaol
for depraving the public mind, because I have given for tlic
sum of sixpence information v/hich for the last half-century
has been given in various forms and shapes, and for printing
a recipe as others have done ; and because the eye of the
learned Solicitor-General caught the word " cayenne amongst
other things, that must forsooth be evidence of the most gross
immorality. I will now pass over several pages and go to page
38 of the pamphlet, because there are a number of things re-
ferred to there which are more fully given by other books ;
but I will make my remarks thereupon as short as possible,
in what I fear must at briefest be a wearisome and long-
speech. I will take you to the instrument purchasable for
a shilling, which is to be made a ground for convicting me ;

200

and here let me say that I cannot help wishing that the
learned counsel who has addressed you had not used lan-
guage which was capable of being misunderstood. AVhen
you talk of an instrument in connection with such a topic
instead of a harmless syringe, one of the simplest instru-
ments, here recommended, the mind would be taken by the
Solicitor-General's words to instruments familiarly known in
medical jurisprudence, and used for the commission of
crime. I venture to say it is outraging all reason and sense
when you offer the suggestion that it is recommended here
for a criminal or immoral purpose. I think, however, I may
manage to save time if I take several paragraphs together,
so I will take the paragraphs on pages 38, 39, 40, and 41,
so as not to have to refer to them again. And, first of all,
perhaps you would hardly believe, but I can assure you that
in pages 375-6-7, 380-89, Sims in this book actually gives
cases where the use of the syringe has been resorted to for
the very purpose recommended in Knowlton, in that one
case which is given on page 376. If details of that kind
are fairly permissible in a book whose distribution and pub-
lication are not restricted, I do not see why I should be pre-
cluded from publishing statement so carefully worded as those
of Knowlton. Oh, but it is said, such things excite sexual feelings.
Let me say that I do not believe that they do anything of
the kind. At any rate they do not produce any lascivious
thoughts in my mind, but, on the contrary, I assure you
that going through these details as I have had to do for
the purposes of making my defence, produced upon me,
unused as I am generally to such a class of study, the very
same kind of revolution which is, I venture to say, passing
through your minds at this moment, in being compelled to
listen to the reading. A syringe can be bought for a shilling,
and can be used for sanitary purposes, some of which are
enforced on wretched women under police authority, but
here, in Sims, we have plate after plate setting forth the man-
ner in which it is to be used, and yet the pamphlet of Knov/1-
ton is brought into Court, because it suggests a similar use
but in much more decent language, and is, therefore, charac-
terised as ^^filth^bythe learned Solicitor-General. Books
of the very same character may be sold to the rich, but the
poor are not to be allowed to get the cheap information
because they can purchase it for a shilling.

The Lord Chief Justice : The argument of the Soli-
citor-General, do not understand me for a moment to say

201

that it cannot be met, was to this effect, that that vv-hich it
is essential for medical men to know, is not essential for the
general public to know, or at least it may not be, and that
such information may be used to corrupt the public mind.
The Solicitor-General did not say that those things were not
to be found in medical works, nor did he argue, as far as I
understood, that if those books were published to the world
generally they would not be subject to legal consequences,
but he said they were allowed to pass unchallenged because
they were written for a particular purpose, to give the result
of experiment and experience with the view of instructing,
and, undoubtedly, in w^orks of that character — works in-
tended to give medical information — it is absolutely neces-
sary to give those minute details to which you have referred.
The argument is that it is unnecessary to give these details
to the general public, and I refer to it because I think if the
argument can be met it should be met, and if they are so
given the tendency is to corrupt the public mind. It is,
therefore, I think, of no use to multiply instances, and to
pile illustration upon illustration without strengthening your
argument. In every work intended for medical purposes,
or to give instruction in medical studies, it is necessary that
these details should be given to enable medical men to treat
the diseases of the various organs, but I question whether the
same information given to the general public may be of ad
vantage to them, or whether on the other hand it is not
calculated to influence them in an opposite direction. That
is the argument I think you have to grapple with.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Quite so, my lord. I agree that if it
were possible for this proposition to be conceded in any
way by the prosecution it would shorten the case very much
— the proposition that there is no fact stated by Knowlton
that is not stated in a variety of books, not only written
especially for the medical profession, but that the whole of
the details which I have given are in Carpenter's physiolo-
gical school books in plain language, which is put into the
hands of children, distributed by authority, and given away
in the shape of prizes. If that proposition could be cou-
ceded to me it would relieve me from a considerable difti-
culty and the necessity of inflicting upon the Court and the
jury a very long statement, though I trust that your lord-
ship will not think that I have detained you too long.

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh no, not at all. That v/as
not my meaning.

202

I.Ir. Bradlaugii : If it is even admitted that these de-
tails are not entered into with greater particularity than is
necessary for the comprehension of the subject I shall gladly
relieve the jury of much that I had intended to say. The
contention of the learned Solicitor-General is that we have
gone into certain facts only for corrupting the public mind,
and my proposition is that it is necessary to advocate
checks upon over-population, and that it is necessary, for
these checks to be properly understood, to give information
to poor people, among whom the evil largely exists — informa-
tion upon sexual and physiological matters, and that in
doing this the incriminated pamphlet does not contain one
word which is not for that purpose legitimate and necessary,
not one word which is not pure and fit for the instructing of
the poor and ignorant in these matters. That is why I put
this proposition at the outset of my argument, and not for
the purpose of any special pleading. I only want to shov/
that every statement is legitimate and necessary to the
subject treated, and as I cannot give in evidence the books,
I fear I must further, unless in some fashion that pro-
position is granted to me, pile authority upon authority, as
your lordship has observed, to cover my defence and to prove
the accuracy of my contention. If the jury think I have
said enough upon the subject I would not open another
book before them. There is, I contend, nothing indecent,
nothing which is not warranted by the matters treated, and
v/e who feel ourselves called upon to face the issue, as
the advocates of checks to over-population, contend that,
moral or immoral as the book may be thought by others,
this pamphlet states neither more nor less than is necessary
or legitimate for the purpose.

The Lord Chief Justice : I do not think that any one
would say that if this were purely and simply a medical
w^ork there w^ould be any redundancy of details, or anything
more than it is necessary for a medical man to know, and
he would be among the most ignorant of his profession if he
did not know them ; but then the argument is that this is
not a medical book, and that is the point which I think you
should meet.

The Court adjourned for half-an-hour.

After the adjournment, Mr. BradlauCxH proceeded :
I have myself, with, my co-defendant, gravely considered,
as we naturally ought to do, any suggestion coming from

203

your lordship, and we feel the full force and weight of your
lordship's suggestion. I am in this difficult}^, that, having a
little to plead this medical portion, not only for myself, but
for the lady who has so ably defended herself, I feel that
she relies a little — indeed, without presumption, I may say
she relies entirely — upon any advice I may offer to her as
to the conduct of these proceedings. I do not want to do
anything which may in any way damage either her position
or my own ; and I think, therefore, I shall be consulting
what is due to the Court, which has listened to us with very,
very great patience, if I only make use of some of the books
which I have here, and v»4iich, if I were to attempt to cite
passages from them all, judging from the rate at which I
have been able to deal with the two already mentioned,
would take several days of the time of the Court, and add
nothing to the force of what has been adduced. There are,
however, one or two books which I think I ought to deal
vvith.

The Lord Chief Justice : By all means.

Mr. Bradlaugh : If your lordship, then, v/ill permit me,
I will cite the wj^^rks of Carpenter and Kirke as v/orks which
are being used in schools ] and I think, if I take one of
these works — namely. Carpenter's — it will suffice for the
present, because what is found in the one is to a great ex-
tent found in the other. That is a book specially designed
for young people. It is not issued for the professional use
of students at a university or college, but, as I have said,
it is intended for the instruction of young people generally.
I also intend to make some comments on a book of
Churchill's, which was partially alluded to by my co-defen-
dant, and, with the exception of some references, without
going into details, to Chavasse and Bull, I propose to make
no further detailed quotations, thinking that we have at all
events impressed the jury sufficiently, and feeling that we
should not unduly take up their time, after the passages
vrhich I am sure your lordship will not think it impertinent
in me to have read as I have from the medical works, to
show that there had been nothing unfairly stated in the
Knowlton pamphlet.

The Lord Chief Justice : No, you may take it that you
have shown that what is in Knowlton, if it were a medical
vvork, would not be so full as other medical works treating
sim.ilar topics.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I feel that I should only be taking

204

advantage of the patience of the jury if, after that intima-
tion from the Bench, I unduly pressed the other books.
I will, therefore, only take Carpenter's " Human Physio
logy," a work by Burt Wilder, who was a professor in Cor-
nell University, and also some small portions of Churchill s
"Diseases of Women," for the reason partially referred to
by my co-defendant. These are three large books in wide
circulation, and there is no pretence whatever for saying
that they are confined to medical men. Before I proceed
to deal with them, you will permit me to say — and I hope I
shall not unduly put it — that the pretence about the restric-
tion of the circulation of medical books is as utterly hollow
as it is possible to conceive. In addition to the works to
which I have referred, there are some thirty or forty bulky
works which I have very carefully compared with Knowl-
ton's pamphlet. It was my intention to quote from those
works, and to point out that they can be purchased with the
greatest facility. They are published, some in Dublin by
Hewitt, and some in London by Sampson Low and Co.,
Churchill, Macmillan, and Smith and Son themselves. One
v/hich is called " The Ladies' Manual of Homoeopathic
Treatment," is published by the Homoeopathic Company in
Moorgate Street — a highly respectable company. Certain
details are contained on pages 15, 16, and 17 of that book.
I have studied those details, and, while I do not v/ant to
characterise another book, I should say that they are almost
grossly treated compared with the fashion in which Knowl-
ton has treated them. But I quite agree with what has
fallen from the Bench, that we should in no way strengthen
our position here by simply going over book after book for
several days, w^earisomely to you and to myself. I will only
put it to you that the richer can afford and do pay 5 s., los.,
or even 21s. for a book ; not that there is anything indecent
in it, but simply because a woman does not like sometimes
to mention to medical men things which this Ladies' Manual
tells her, but which are matters of great delicacy. Now,
look at the other side. Poor women — women whose claims
I am here to advocate, and whose husbands and children
are also my clients — they need the same information ; but
at the prices I have quoted it is beyond their reach. I can-
not help thinking that if there were, as I believe there is
not, any offence in the publication of such things as are pub-
lished here — I cannot help thinking that it is a little hard in
the City of London to single out for prosecution those whose

205

only desire is to tecch the poor how to help themselv^es.
The poor have their wants, the poor have their needs, the
poor have their failings, the poor have their diseases, and
the poor are the most numerous class of society. As a
matter of fact, there is no restriction in the circulation of
medical works at all. As a matter of fact, since this prose-
cution has been pending, Messrs. Churchill have issued special
circulars, drawing attention to these works, and both they and
Messrs. Smith and Son have circulated this book of Chavasse's,
not simply as I have got it here, but divided into two parts and
done up in paper covers, and scores of copies are to be found
on every bookstall. I do not blame the publishers for
utilising the notoriety given to the book. All I want to
point out is the fact that, since these proceedings began^
the publishers are issuing advertisements, and that there has
been an increased sale of the work. There is no pretence
whatever that it is meant for the medical profession exclu-
sively. No fewer than eleven thousand of the last edition
have been sold, and that is the eleventh edition of the book.

The Lord Chief Justice : What is the name of it ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : It is Chavasse's " Advice to Wives,
and deals particularly with menstruation, and the develop-
ment of the foetus, and it treats also on pregnancy and concep-
tion. I do not want to say anything against Chavasse ; but I
think he has written a book to sell, with more padding and
jokes than can be found in Knowlton's pamphlet — a book,
in short, which, though not in any way of an obscene
tendency, yet occasionally gives dstails in a very broad style.
He deals also with the question of sterility, and indicates
the remedies necessary to prevent it. The book of Dr.
BulFs is of the same character ; but on the whole I should
regard it as a much superior production, though you find in
every page the same subjects discussed. These books are
to be seen on every bookstall in the country, and are circu-
lating by scores of thousands.

The Lord Chief Justice : Are you sure they are sold
by Smith and Son ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am quite sure, my lord. At the
same time I do not want to cover myself by imputations on
other people.

The Lord Chief Justice : I am quite certain that the
]\Iessrs Smith would not sell a single copy of a work which
they considered at all injurious to public morals.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I fully admit that. Both in London

205

and elsewhere tlie name of Messrs. Smith can be vouched
for as bemg of the highest standing. My contention is not
because other people have done worse than I have, that,
therefore, I should be let off. My contention is that the
rich have certain useful information within their rerxh
which they have no more right to have it at their disposal
for IS. 6d. than the poor have at 6d. Chavasse's book,
vdiich, on the branches on wdiich it treats, gives fuller details
than Knowlton's pamphlet, is divided into tw^o parts, one
giving hints to wives, and the other hints to mothers, and
the object of the division is to make the work cheap. It is,
as I have said, done up in paper covers, and published at
eighteen pence. It Vvdll be forwarded to any one on the
receipt of stamps at Churchill's, Smith's, or at any bookstall,
so that the question of restricted circulation in reference to
this class of works is at once got rid of. I purposely limit
myself in this case to three books only, hoping the jury will
believe that I am not over-stating the truth when I say that
I have annotated for reference nearly forty volumes. They
over and over again cover every page of Knowlton, and I
refrain from reading the passages simply because I acknow-
ledge the justice of his lordship's observation that by doing
so I should be piling fact upon fact ad naicseam without
strengthening my case. Therefore I shall not do anything
which the jury, judging as between man and man, may
have anything to complain of. I shall take Carpenter's
" Human Physiology," reminding you that that is a book
recommended by the Committee of Council on Educa-
tion in their directory which regulates the establishing
and conducting of science schools and classes. I feel
bound to bring that book before you, because I
cannot help regretting the point urged by the Solicitor-
General— I will not say unfairly but strongly, and put by
my lord, fi'om the bench — that there is some difference
betvv^een a work written, as my lord says, by medical men
for medical men or students, or for people desiring to make
themselves acquainted Vvith the science of medicine, in which
it may be necessary to use certain language for the sake of
humanity, and to enter into a variety of details which are
not pleasant reading for the general public. But, to use the
analogy of my co-defendant, the details of the process of
digestion and w^hat takes place in that process, would not
enable you to enjoy your dinner if you went into the study
of them immediately before the dinner hour. Now,

207

Carpenter's Human Physiology" Is one of the books in
which the young folks are to be examined, and of which
many editions have been published. According to the
directory of the Committee of Council on Education, this book
is to be made one of the standard works for examination, and
if the contention is to be made that the giving of the informa-
tion contained in this book is obscenity, and that the ten-
dency of giving that information is to corrupt and deprave
the public mind, then you are landed in a difficulty as
regards this case, because the whole of that information is
given in the book which I shall bring bef®re you. There is
this to be said — and I hope I shall not neglect the view
which his lordship put — that there is a distinction to be
drawn. Carpenter's " Human Physiology," though given to
young boys and girls in schools for the purpose of instruct-
ing them, among other things, as to what happens during
sexual connection, and what happens after it, although it
tells them how birth may be forwarded, and how it may be
retarded, by giving illustrations in relation to it, the object
simply is to instruct them so far, and there is no design in
the book of inducing them to limit the number of their
offspring. I hope I have fairly stated the point which his
lordship put to me ; but there is one thing which I ask you
to consider in giving your verdict, namely — Is the advocacy
of all checks lawful, except the advocacy of such checks as
involve the destruction of the foetus after conception or the
destruction of the child after birth ? I am not asking you
to lay down the doctrine that Knowlton is altogether correct.
A doctrine may be unscientific v>dthout being immoral ; and
I repeat that the point v;hich I desire to put to you is
this. Is the advocacy of all checks lavv^ful, except such as
involve the destruction of the fcetus after conception, or
of the child after birth ? I will take you first to page 1 1
of Knov/lton's Pamphlet, beginning with the second
small paragraph in the middle, v/here you vrill find a
description of the female parts. In Carpenter's ^' Human
Physiology," pages 102 1, 1022, and 1023, you v/ill find the
same much more fully. I vrill not trouble to read a
Vv'ord of it to you, because the curious thing which struck
nie v\'hen I first commenced to compare Carpenter with
Knowlton vv^as that in nearly every respect the language vras
precisely identical, with the one exception that Knowlton
was simply an epitome of Carpenter, cooled dovrn. One
reason perhaps was that Knovdton had to get all his facts

208

irito a very limited space — I do not want to take more
credit for the author than he deserves — and, therefore, he
had to express them in very small compass indeed. To
show that I am correct I will put to you an illustration about
four lines down the paragraph, ending page ii. (Mr.
Bradlaugh then read a long extract from Carpenter.) The
author then goes into a description which covers several pages,
and is as exact in accord with Knowlton as it possibly can
be ; and considering that Carpenter's book is used by
children in schools, and has a number of plates and pictures
of the organs described, it is remarkable that the same
language is employed in both Carpenter and Knowlton,
page by page, and step by step. Nov/, bearing in mind that
one may overshoot one's mark by continually reading the
same things, I will, although several other passages intervene,
proceed to take illustration of puberty. It is given on page
15 of Knowlton. You will find that it says simply — ^'A
girl acquires a more womanly appearance." On page 958
of Carpenter — and this is a book which is put into the hands
of girls — you find the same thing thus stated. (Mr.
Bradlaugh read a long extract.) Now, I put it to you,
as a mere matter of fact, whether the few words " A
girl acquires a more womanly appearance," is not the
excess of delicacy compared with the other description con-
tained in a book put into the hands of young boys and
girls from 12 to 16, who are not only instructed in the book,
but actually receive copies of it as prizes. The whole of
the facts relative to menstruation are there stated with the
excess of detail. Pardon me for a moment while I refer
you to one passage in order to show how Carpenter deals
with the sexual act itself, and I do so simply as an answer
to the argument of the Solicitor-General as to the
circulation of this book in girls' schools. It is on
page 961 section 743, and refers specially to the function
of the female which happens to be dealt with by
Knowlton as you knov/. (Mr. Bradlaugh again read.)
You find that Carpenter deals with such matters as are on
pages 12 to 17 of the Knowlton pamphlet, and gives many
pages of description with appropriate plates for the instruc-
tion of young girls, and I cannot help thinking that if such
descriptions by Carpenter are considered advantageous to
moral training, it is a little too hard to say that Knowlton's
pamphlet is indecent. In Carpenter reference is also made
to the changes which take place in the male. (Mr. Bradlaugh

209

here read from pages 952 — 953, section 734). In dealing
with the sexual act, the particularity is much more extreme
in Carpenter's than in Knowlton's work. I wdll not trouble
you with reading one more word from Carpenter. I simply
tell you that I have carefully marked page after page of his
book, and I have selected passages which do not come
within the range of ordinary medical works, but w^hich are
considered by the Science and Art Department of the Com-
mittee of Council on Education as fit subjects in which
young men and young women are to be instructed and ex-
amined. The subjects, you wall remember, I have already
stated to you. I am unfortunately precluded, by the
ruling of my lord, from putting this Government syllabus
into your hands. I trust I am endeavouring as far as pos-
sible to save your time consistently with the merest approach
to justice to my case. There is not a page of this pamphlet
of Knowlton's relating to the female, her organs and func-
tions, which is not over and over again covered by this
volume of Carpenter's, and covered in such a way as to
show that the latter writer wanted to make his book
interesting. It is amply clear that Knowlton had no such
object. He had no interest in making his pamphlet even
approach indecency, and, on the whole, it is a dry book.
Why, we have in court a cyclopaedia of anatomy and phy-
siology, published by Longmans, in which all the parts are
given with a degree of particularity, and wdth plates to aid
the comprehension, which was not limited in circulation
solely among medical men. I will now refer — and not more
than is absolutely necessary — to a book written by Burt G.
Wilder, a professor of Cornell University, and published in
London by Triibner, and in Boston by Estes and Lauriat. I
have some knowledge of that Boston firm. It is as respectable as
Triibner or Longman, and would not knowingly publish any-
thing whatever of an improper character. The author says he
WTote the book chiefly for students and unprofessional
readers, and denies that the subject cannot be presented
wdth safety to the minds of the young. On the contrary, he
says it is a duty to enlighten the young on sexual physiology,
in order that they may not be ignorant of matters of this
kind. The book is not written by a quack. You may tell
me that it is written by an American professor only. The
Solicitor-General, eminent himself as a scientist, sneered at
American doctors. I have been treated wdth great kindness
in the United States, and feel bound to resent the slurs cast

2IO

upon AmerlcpJi doctors. They are as highly educated, and
possess as high characters in America as in London, and
though, in this great city, from its population, antiquity, and
wealth, there are special advantages offered, excelling most
cities in the world, there are medical men of as much emi-
nence and probity in Nev/ York and Boston, and in Paris
and Vienna, as can be found in any city in England. It
was my intention to refer to a large number of French and
Italian books, and especially to the Elementi de Igieni," by
Dr. Paolo Mantegazza, one of the present deputies in the
Italian Chamber, which defends, in the strongest terms, the
checks on population advocated by Knovrlton. I do not
mention that fact by way of excusing myself; but if you put
this case as a precedent, which I think you must, you must
consider that in fairly dealing with it. Now, Wilder, who,,
in his work, gives the fullest physiological instruction, deals
with the fact of celibacy, which is also dealt with at page 8 of
Knowlton's pamphlet. In his book, v/ritten for the youngs
he says — [Here Mr. Bradlaugh read from pages 148 and
149.] Wilder's book, you will see, goes into far greater
detail than the Knowlton pamphlet. Its motto is, Honi
soit qui mal y pense — a motto which, if I may do so with-
out impertinence, I would commend to the Solicitor-General
and those who conduct this prosecution. On pages 30, 38^
40, and 49 of this book, which, bear in mind, is intended
for young people, there are given the fullest descriptions, not
only of the female organs, but of the male organs as well^
with plates to explain them. The descriptions are very
plain and explicit, and if they had been copied from some
enlarged edition of Knowlton, they could not have been
more completely in accord. I must repeat that Wilder's
book has been sold in London by Triibner, and at Boston,
by Estes and Lauriat, and that it is intended, not for
medical men, but for young people. I think you v/ill
find there almost the exact words of pages 11, 12, 13, and 14
of Knowlton's pamphlet. I do not want to seem to savour of
impertinence, and I do not want to read the extracts at alL
But the passages are often word for word identical, except
where Wilder is much more detailed, and there is, in
addition to the letterpress, plates which it is impossible to
mistake, and which are given in such a way that those who
read the book could not help understanding the whole.
And yet, I am told that particularity of detail is evidence of
an intention to deprave and corrupt. What does Wilder

211

say ? I v/ill only give a brief summaiy. (Mr. Bradlaiich
here read extracts covering much of pages 19 to 44 of the
Knowlton pamphlet.) The Sohcitor-General does not seem
to know what Carpenter and Kirke have written, or that
their lessons are taught in the Science and Art Schools of
England, and 3^et we are sought to be prohibited from
putting similar knowledge in the hands of the masses of the
people at a cheap price. Now, for a moment, I will refer
you to another work as to which there cannot be any
pretence for saying that it is confined to medical men. It
is a work on Anthropology, by Dr. Nichols, who says that it
is such a book we would wish to see in the hands of every
man and woman who is wise enough to profit by its pages.
There is contained in that book exactly the same information
as is contained in the works of Carpenter and Kirke, with
pictures showing the different organs of the human body, so
that there should be no mistake. One more topic I must
allude to. In my allusions to Carpenter and Wilder, I have
not done what I had sketched out in my brief, because if I
had done so, there is not one line that would not have been
as fully dealt with as in Marion Sims. But I think, in
addressing the court and jury, I have no right to thrust
upon them anything at unfair length. There now remains,
not contention that we have highly coloured or coloured at
all, but it is proved v/e have, or rather Knowlton has^
softened down and chastened that with which he had to
deal in the discharge of what he deemed to be his duty — if
that were not practically conceded to us, I should have
felt it necessary for my own sake and for the sake of the lady
who is co-defendant with me, to have gone through every line at
the risk of wearying you. But no such responsibility rests
upon me. In this pamphlet there is no attempt at indecent
statement. The only object is to teach people how to check
population after marriage. Is it, then, I ask, such a h^ok
that you must give your verdict against it ? I will refer you
for an instant to a book by Dr. Fleetv/ood Churchill on
*^The Theory and Practice of Midwifery." There is also a
book called ^'The Diseases of Women," by the same author,
nearly to the same effect. The one portion I wish to allude
to in each work is more as a measure of argument than as a
measure of comparison. Dr. Churchill argues that it is
lawful and morally right, in a case where you know that a
v/om.an is so diseased or deformed that she cannot on a
future pregnancy bring into the v/orld a healthy child,

o 2

212

SO to operate upon her that future conception must
be impossible. In addition to that, on pages 298 and
299, he argues that it is right, where you know
that a pregnant woman is so much malformed, or
is diseased to such an extent that she cannot bring into the
world a healthy child at the full term, to procure what is
sometimes called the premature delivery of the child by
drugs or instruments, the object being to save the life of the
mother or the child, or prevent the child being born alive so
malformed that life would be a misery to it. Now, if that be
right, I ask where is the iniquity of seeking to prevent the
conception of children at all, whose life, if created, will be a
misery to them and to others? I am inclined here — and I
hope by so doing I shall not have done injustice to the cause
— I am inclined to abandon the whole of the books I had
intended to rely upon in addressing you. I am inclined to
abandon them, because if I go through them, I must occupy
you for several days, and I do think, with a jury and judge
so patient and kind as you have been, I have no right to
take up so much of your time. I ask you, then, to consider
the issues which I have put to you already and which I put
to you again, viz.. Is over-population the cause of poverty ?
Is over-population the cause of misery ? Is over-population
the cau^e cf crime? Is over-population the cause of
disease ? Is it moral or immoral to check poverty, igno-
rance, vice, crime, and disease? I can only think you
vvill give one answer, that it is moral to check
these evils. You may say : Try to restrain them,
like Malthus, by late marriage. Ay, but even to get late
marriage, you must teach poor men and women to compre-
hend the need for it, and, even then, if you get real celibacy,
Acton and others will tell you what horrible diseases are the
outcome of this state of things. Really, you never can
get even celibacy. You know what takes place in London
and Paris. I have passed through Naples and Rome, and
I have been shocked at being stopped by lads at night. In
Florence, in Berlin, in Paris, you all know w^hat arises
from this pretence of celibacy. Even in our own large
centres of population, such as Dublin, Edinburgh, and
Glasgow, you know what this false pretence of celibacy
means. Take the case of Birmingham as an illustration.
Walk through the streets of that city between nine and
eleven in the evening, and as the gaslight shov/s the flaunt-
ing shame, tell me whether celibacy is a reality or a sham.

213

Tell me whether or not that terrible word " prostitution,"
written everywhere in letters of festering curse, is not a dis-
figuring scar upon the surface of society. It is said that
this pamphlet tries to defend immorality. You must con-
tradict every page of it — ignore every word in it — to warrant
that assumption. You may say it is very unfair, for example,
that the agricultural labourer should have children to burden
the poor's-rate. But put yourself in the position of the
agricultural labourers. They have not the training and
education that you have, and sometimes mere sexual gratifi-
cation is the only pleasure of their lives. They cannot read
Virgil; they cannot read Dante. They cannot listen to
Beethoven; they cannot Usten to Handel. They cannot
go to a musical reunion ; and they cannot visit a sculpture
gallery. They have no time occasionally to run across the
Alps. They have no opportunity of finding recreation in
the Pyrenees. They cannot yacht in the North Sea. They
cannot fish for salmon at New Brunswick or St. John's.
They are limited to their narrow parish bound, and
their bound is only the work, the home, the beerhouse,
the poorhouse, and the grave. We w^ant to make them
more comfortable; and you tell us we are immoral
We want to prevent them bringing into the world little
children to suck death, instead of life, at the breasts of
their mother ; and you tell us we are immoral. I
should not say that, perhaps, for you, gentlemen, may
judge things differently from myself ; but I know the
poor. I belong to them. I was born amongst them.
Among them are the earliest associations of my life. Such
little ability as I possess to-day has come to me in the hard
struggle of life. I have had no University to polish my
tongue ; no Alma Mater to give to me any eloquence by
which to move you. I plead here simply for the class to
which I belong, and for the right to tell them what may re-
deem their poverty and alleviate their misery. And I ask
you to believe in your heart of hearts, even if you deliver a
verdict against us here — I ask you, at least, to try and be-
lieve both for myself and the lady who sits beside me (I
hope it for myself, and I earnestly v/ish it for her), that all
through we have meant to do right, even if you think that
we have done wrong. I have to put to you this proposition :
you jurymen are to be convinced that we are guilty. If a
shadow of doubt go through your minds you have no right
to make a deliverance of guilty against us ; and unless }0U

214

feel we are the fit associates of those horrible Holywell
Street men, who circulate foul literature day by day, and
that we are deserving even of being put in the scale with
those v/ho circulate obscene prints, your deliverance must be
one of not guilty. It is not a question whether you agree
with the methods of checking population ; it is not a ques-
tion whether you are Malthusians or anti-Malthusians. I
put it to you, and I ask you to consider it carefully, that the
question which you have to determine is this : — Is the
advocacy of all checks to population lawful, except such as
advocate the destruction of the foetus after conception, or
of the child after birth ? Is it possible to preach abstinence
and prudence to the poor without instructing them in the
various matters of physiology which have been dealt with in
this pamphlet ? There is not one line in it which goes
beyond what is legitimate or necessary. Is there any
pretence whatever for saying that we have given any sort of
colouring to it which would make it otherwise acceptable ?
My co-defendant referred, in earnest language, to the letters
which she had received from women, and clergymen, and
others, throughout the country. I, too, have received many
Vv^arm words of sympathy from those who think that I am
right. It is true many of them may be ignorant people, and
therefore may be wrong ; but they have written to encourage
me with their kindly sympathy in my pleading before you.
If we are branded with the offence of circulating an obscene
book, many of these poor people will still think "No.''
They think such knowledge would prevent misery in their
families, would check hunger in their families, and would
hinder disease in their families. Do you know what poverty
means in a poor man's house ? It means that when you
are reproaching a poor and ignorant man with brutality,
you forget that he is merely struggling against that hardship
of life which drives all chivalry and courtesy out of his
existence. Do not blame poor men too much that they are
rough and brutal. Think mercifully of a man such as a
brick-maker, who, going home after his day's toil, finds six
or seven little ones crying for bread, and clinging around
his wife for the food which they cannot get. Think you
such a scene as that is not sufficient to make both himself
and her hungry and angry too ? Gentlemen, it is for you,
in your deliverance of guilty or not guilty, to say how we
are to go from this court — whether, when we leave this
place, if you mark us guilty, his lordship may feel it to be

215

Ilis duty to sentence us, and put upon us the brand of a
doom such as your verdict may warrant ; or whether, by
your verdict of not guilty — which I hope for myself and
desire for my co-defendant — w^e may go out of this court
absolved from that shame which this indictment has sought
to put upon us. (There was applause in court at the con-
clusion of Mr. Bradlaugh's address.)

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not intend, my lord, after the intima-
tion which your lordship has been good enough to give me, t j
offer any evidence that would really be in any way unneces-
sary. There are three or four witnesses only which I will
call, with the permission of your lordship. If your lordship
should think that I should briefly state the character of the
•evidence I am about to offer to the court and the jury, and
you should think such evidence to be inadmissible, I would
ask your lordship to make a note of the point, so that, if
necessary, we may raise it afterwards. I intend, then, to call
Miss Vickery, a medical student in London and Paris, for
the purpose of proving a number of facts that have come
within her own experience as a medical student. I shall
also put in the box Dr. Drysdale, to give evidence of a
.similar character, because his experience is much wider, and
perhaps I shall call the wxll-known publisher, Mr. Bohn, to
give his experience in London and elsewhere regarding the
publication of such w^orks as those of Dr. Carpenter, or of
this pamphlet by Dr. Knowlton.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is impossible to tell exactly
beforehand what the evidence may be, and therefore I think
3^ou had better call the witnesses, and any objection that may
be raised can be considered when it is made.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well, my lord; I Vvill now call Miss
Vickery.

Miss Alice Vickery w^as examined by Mrs. Besant.

Mrs. Besant : I presume, my lord, I can put any ques-
tion until some objection is raised. To witness : Your name
is Alice Vickery ? — It is.

And you reside at number 333, Albany Road ? — Yes.

Are you a chemist by examination of the Pharmaceutical
Society of Great Britain ? — I am.

And the first lady, I believe, who passed the regular ex-
amination of that Society ? — Yes.

Did you study midwifery and diseases of women at
any London hospital ? — Yes : at the Yv'omen's Medical
College.

2l6

For how long ? — I have studied medicine for six )^ears.

Are you at present a fourth-year student of I'Ecole de
Medicine at Paris? — I' am.

Have you attended practical midwifery at the City of
London Lying-in Hospital ? — I have.

Have you received a certificate for this ? — I have.

You have sent your certificates to Ireland, I believe, for a
special purpose ? — Yes, but I wrote for them, and have them
with me.

It was intimated to me, my lord, that they had been sent
to Ireland, as the witness intends to go up for the Dublin
examination. To witness : Do you produce it ? — I have it
here.

Have you also the certificate for midwifery of the Ob-
stetrical Society of London ? — I have.

Do you produce it ? — I can do so (producing papers).

Have you attended hospital practice for several years in
London and Paris ? — I have.

And attended the practice of Surgery, I believe, under
the famous Professor Verneuil of Paris ? — Yes.

And you have devoted some six years of your life, you
say, to these studies? — I have studied at least six years.

Have you read the pamphlet which is the subject of the
present charge ? — I have.

With the means of judging derived from the experience
of which you have told us, do you consider this pamphlet
to have been written by one well-acquainted with medical
science at the date of its publication ? — Most decidedly I
should say it had been written by one well acquainted Vv^ith
medical science nearly 40 years ago.

You consider that it is a work written by a competent
medical man for general circulation ? — I think it a most
important work.

What I wish to ask you is this : Do you, from your own
personal knowledge and experience, consider that, writing 40^
years ago, his knowledge of physiology was accurate and
real ? — Certainly. He must have been a most competent
and experienced man.

In your hospital experience have you any knowledge of
the effects of large families ? — I have seen a good deal of
them.

You are speaking from ths experience of which you have-
told us, when you say that ? — I am speaking from my own
experience and knowledge. I am not dealing with books,.

217

but with facts. I am speaking of my knowledge of families
and of the mothers who bear them.

Then your opinion of the evil effects of over large families
is drawn from your own experience, and you know vv^hat the
effects are upon mothers and children ? — I have studied the
question from that point, and there is no doubt, in my
mind, from the experience I have gained in hospitals, that a
very great deal of suffering is caused by over child-bearing
to the mothers themselves ; to the children, because of the
insufficient nutriment which they are able to give them
and to the children before birth from the condition of the
mothers.

Have you found, in your experience, any bad result to
the health of the mother from over-lactation of children
amongst the poor ? — Most certainly. There are many evils
resulting from over-lactation. One thing is a falling of the
uterus, and another the permanent weakening of the mother's
health.

The next question I have to ask you is a most important
one. It is : Is it within your own knowledge and experi-
ence that poor married women desire very often to check
the increase of their famihes, and that they very frequently
seriously injure themselves, by adopting detrimental means,
such as deleterious drugs, from complete ignorance of those
means which might be adopted without any injury to their
health ?

The Lord Chief Justice : That is a very complicated
question, and if it is competent to put it at all, I think it
should, if possible, be simplified.

Mrs. Besant : I am afraid, my lord, it is rather compli-
cated, but I think I could, if you would allov/ me to do so,
divide it. To witness : You have told us that, in your
opinion, the health of married women is sometimes injured
by over-childbearing. Are you aware whether they ever
adopt any means to check the increase of their families ?
— Most certainly.

Do you say that from your own experience ? — I am quite
aware that they sometimes do so.

Do you mean apart from your own experience, or have
any instances come within your own knowledge? — I have
in my own experience instances where women have taken
means to prevent conception, and after it has taken place to
do away with the results.

2l8

Do you know if this is done by the advice of the husband ?
- — Yes, by his advice to prevent conception.

Is it generally considered that over-lactation is one of
those means ? — It is ; I have known many women who have
continued to suckle their children as long as two years, and
even longer than two years, because they believed that that
would prevent them from conceiving again so rapidly.

How long is it usual to suckle a child? — It depends ; in
some cases a year. Nine months Vv^ould be as much as
could often be done in safety, but a child might in most
cases, I think, be suckled a year without injury.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is that the usual time for
suckling children among women generally, or among the
poor?

The Witness : Twelve months is a reasonable time, but,
as I have said, that may in some cases be excessive.

The Lord Chief Justice : And when it is double that
time, is it very injurious in its effect ?

The Witness : It is, my lord, on the mother as well as
on the child.

Mrs. Besant : And you say that that method of warding
off an increase is fairly often adopted by poor women ? —
Yes, I should say so from my own experience.

You tell us only from your own experience. Have you
had women under your care who have been suffering from
the result of over-lactation ? — I have.

What is the result? — The result is very great weakness
and general debility, and these are the fruitful source of
other diseases.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is if pregnancy occurs
during the period of lactation ? — Whether it does or not, my
lord.

Mrs. Besant : And you have found that pregnancy does
occur in spite of over-lactation? — Certainly, over-lactation
is no preventive whatever against pregnancy.

The Lord Chief Justice : But many people, you say,
think that it is ? — Many think it is, my lord, but it is not.

Mrs. Besant : And is the result of that ignorance an
injury to the mother as well as to the suckling child and
to the child unborn ? — Certainly ; it results in weakness to
the mother, very often excessive discharge, which is very
weakening to the child in the womb, and is the cause of rickets
in children, and that leads to numerous other disorders.

That is the direct result, in your opinion^ of trying to

219

check an over-increase of family without the physiological
knowledge of how to do so without dangerous results ?
— Certainly.

The Lord Chief Justice : You must draw the con-
clusion in your summing up.

Mrs. Besant : Certainly. I hope, my lord, that I have
not asked any question which is illegal, and not according
to the courtesies of the bar ; if I have done so I hope
your lordship will at once give me some intimation of it, so
that I may know where I err.

The Lord Chief Justice : I have not stopped you so
far, because I see a gentleman behind you (Mr. Douglas
Straight) who will, if there is anything of that kind, put a
stop to it with promptitude.

Mr. Douglas Straight: My lord, I have not inter-
rupted hitherto because I am anxious that everything should
be asked in this case which comes within the limits of the
defence under the most liberal interpretation.

Mrs. Besant : I would not do an unfair thing under any
circumstances, if I knew it, and I desire to keep v/ithin the
four corners of the legal restrictions of the court if possible,
but I might do so from lack of legal knowledge, so that I
hope I shall be stopped so soon as I contravene them.
To witness : Have you any experience on this head in
Paris ? — My experience there is only small ; I have not
much experience of that kind in Paris, because there, as a
rule, families are very small indeed ; I have known very
few women there who have had more than two or three
children.

Mrs. Besant : What, if any, is your experience on that
point ?— My experience on that point is not so large as to
entitle me to offer a very decided opinion ; I have been
engaged in the study of medicine and surgery in Paris, and
I have not had there any particular practical obstetrical expe-
rience. What obstetrical experience I have has been gained in
London, and that will not enable me to give any opinion
worthy of weight as to the circumstances obtaining in Paris.

You are aware, I suppose, from what experience you have
had, that there are in Paris married women whose husbands
consent to the use of mechanical means for the lestriction
of their families? — So far as my own knowledge goes, I
cannot answer either one way or the other ; but my patients
have told me more than once that their husbands have
suggested means for preventing conception.

220

They told you that it was so ? — I have heard it in several
cases.

I am going to ask you a rather curious question, but I mean
no discourtesy. Is it your experience among your fellow-
students that knowledge of physiological details tends to
deprave and corrupt ? — Most certainly not.

Have you found that women possessing such knowledge
are less pure-minded than hte ignorant ? — Oh, no.

The Lord Chief Justice : But those would be strong-
minded ladies, Mrs. Besant.

Mrs. Besant : I hope, my lord, that all women are strong-
minded enough not to use knowledge for an improper pur-
pose. To the witness : Is it your opinion that such know-
ledge, where it exists, is used for improper purposes? —
No."

Cross-examined by Mr. Bradlaugh : With the medical ex-
perience of which you have told us, are the statements of
fact in relation to disease and the remedies for those
diseases fairly stated in the pamphlet which you say you
have read ? — Most certainly.

Most certainly. Speaking solely from your experience
of medical treatises, would you describe the physiological
portions of this pamphlet as highly-coloured or over-stated ?
— Certainly they are not highly-coloured in comparison with
other books that I have read both in Paris and in London.
Compared with these, they are not highly-coloured, but
very mildly and quietly put.

Mr. Douglas Straight : I have no question to put.

Dr. Drysdale was called and examined by Mr. Bradlaugh :

Mr. Bradlaugh : Your name is Charles Robert Drysdale ?
—Yes.

Are you a member of the Royal College of Physicians of
London, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons ? —
Yes, I am.

Are you also Consulting Physician to the Farringdon Gen-
eral Dispensary of London, of which Alderman Figgins was
recently chairman of Committee ? — I was physician of that
Society for many years, and I am now consulting physician
to it.

You are also, I believe, Senior Physician to the Metro-
politan Free Hospital of London, and Physician to the
North London Consumption Hospital ? — Yes.

And physician to the Rescue Society's Lock Hospital ?
— I am.

221

Now tell me, have you written several medical works ? —
Yes.

And you have been a long time in practice ? — For many
years.

May I ask you, have you read this pamphlet which is the
subject of the present charge ? — Yes, I read it many years
ago ; I cannot say how many, perhaps twenty. And so far
as that goes I read it again only last night, because I thought
I might be examined upon it to-day.

Well, to your knowledge, this book was published at least
twenty years ago ? — I have been in London some twenty-five
years, and I know I read it shortly after I came, and that
must have been a long time — at least twenty years ago.

. Guided by the medical experience of which you have told
us, do you consider it a fair work on the subject on which
it professes to treat, and are its statements accurate ? — I
have always considered it an excellent treatise, and I have
found among my professional brethren that they have had
nothing to say against it.

As a medical man of position and experience, do you
judge that it is written by a competent medical man? — It is
certainly written by a physician, and an excellent man.
Considering that it was written forty years ago, when it is
thought that people did not know so much as we do — although
I do not believe that we are so very far in advance of the
men of those days — the writer must have been a profound
student of physiology, and far advanced in the medical
science of his time.

This is your professional opinion of the scientific merit of
the book ? — It is, and it is the opinion of many men in the
profession ?

The Lord Chief Justice : You can only speak from
your own experience. — Certainly, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is there anything in the
pamphlet calculated to raise libidinous feelings? — On the
contrary; no one reading the book would be affected in that
way.

Mr. Br AD LAUGH : If I might introduce my own personal
experience, my lord, that is exactly what I have felt in read-
ing these medical books.

The Lord Chief Justice : Is there, do you think, any-
thing prurient about it ? — Certainly not. It is a most excel-
lent little book.

^ Mr. Bradlaugh : Have you, as a medical man, much

222

experience, or any experience, amongst the poor of
London ? — A great deal too much, unfortunately. I have
seen nothing but poverty since I came to this great metro-
polis.

Have you any experience as to poverty being productive
of sickness, especially among the poorer classes, by the
production of large families ? — As I have already told you.
my professional life has been amongst the hospitals for
many years, and that has led me into a situation of contact
with the poor of this city. I have been obliged to see v/hat
a miserable condition there is of squalor, utter distress, and
sickness, even in the great metropolis of the empire.

Has your experience connected this circumstance with
the large families which the poor generally bear? — Yes,
certainly.

Witness here referred to some papers in his hand;
whereupon,

Mr. Straight asked : What are you looking at ?

Dr. Drysdale : I am only referring to some notes.
May I not look at them ?

Mr. Straight : I am afraid you must put them av/ay, and
trust to your memory.

Dr. Drysdale : I am much obliged to 3'OU ; but I da
not knoY/ who you are. I would rather be guided by my
lord than by you. (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice : I think you may tnke it from
the learned counsel. I do not think there has been any
desire as yet to act unfairly on either side.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am afraid you cannot refer to your
notes, Dr. Drysdale. So, if you will kindly, from your own
experience, answer my question

Dr. Drysdale : Then I suppose I must put my notes
away, my lord ?

The Lord Chief Justice : Unless tliey were put down
fresh from memory.

Dr. Drysdale : That is just what I have done, my lord.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Can you say, from your own experience,
that poverty and preventible sickness exist among the
poorer classes in consequence of large families ?

Dr. Drysdale : I have been continually obliged to lament
the excessive rapidity with which the poorer classes bring
unfortunate children into the world, who, in consequence,
grow up weak and ricketty. You see such children suffering
from the rickets and in a very unfortunate condition. Sir

223

William Jenner has written a great deal upon this subject,
and he used to say, what my experience has continually con-
firmed since, that when a working man marries, the first
child or two look very healthy, whilst the third will look
ricketty because the mother is not able to give them that
proper nourishment which she lacks herself. And so vvith
l30th the fourth and fifth. They get more and more
ricketty, and if you search the courts and alleys of London
you will find great numbers of children whose life is simply
a pain to them. If the mother had only had two children
she could have supported them well enough, but when three
or four are born they get that terrible disease — the rickets —
which is a great cause of death in London, a much greater
cause than is generally supposed. Many children supposed to
die of measles, and other infantile diseases, really die of rickets.
In the case of a healthy child such a disease as measles
passes off without much damage, but when it attacks a weak
and ricketty child the child dies, the death is ascribed to
measles, instead of the more largely contributing rickets.
Hence the death-rate is largest in large families.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Have you read the essay on popula-
tion by Mr. Malthus?

Dr. Drysdale : I read it some thirty years ago ; perhaps
more.

Mr. Bradlaugh was proceeding to ask v/hether it •
v/as a fair summary of Mr. Malthus's views to say that popu-
lation was necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
and as to the operation of checks, v/hen

The Lord Chief Justice said he scarcely thought the
question a fair one.

Dr. Drysdale said : One fact I will mention to draw the
attention of yourself and jury to the very important point
of infant mortality. That is a very interesting point
indeed. With all our advances in science we have not
been able to decrease the general death-rate in London.
Twenty years ago it was 22*2 per thousand persons
living. In 1876 it was almost exactly the same, being, in fact,
22*3. Instead of dying more slowly than we did twenty
years ago, we die a little faster. That fact might seem to be
a great disgrace to the medical profession, and to those who
had to advise as to the public health. Indeed, it has been
asked, what is the use of public health officers at all. The
real reason of this increase in the death-rate is, that the
children of the poor die three times as fast as the children

224

of the rich. If all the parents of the children were as well
off as, say the gentlemen of the bar — (laughter) — or of the
special jury, the consequence would be that the number of
children that would die would be very small indeed. Mr.
Hanson has pointed out that to every 100,000 children
amongst the richer classes — which would, of course, include
the barristers — (laughter).

The Lord Chief Justice : And solicitors, too, I should
think — (laughter).

Dr. Drysdale : And solicitors, too, my lord, no doubt —
in 100,000 children of the richer classes, it was found that
there were only 8000 who died during the first year of life ;
whereas looking at the Registrar-General's returns we find
that 15,000 out of every 100,000 of the general population
die in their first year. If you take the children of the poor
in the towns you will find the death-rate three times as large
as among the rich — instead of 8000 there would be 24,000
among the children of the poor. So that you see, the
children of the poor are simply brought into the world to be
murdered. Hence, on the general average, we do not
increase in longevity. The great number of poor people we
have accounts for the rate of mortality being kept as high
as it has been. If we were all brought up we should live, to
about an average of 80 years — (laughter) — except we died
by accident — (laughter).

Mr. Bradlaugh : Have you any experience as to whether
large or small families prevail in I'rance ?

Dr. Drysdale : I have lived there much, and I
have been to France every year for the last fifteen
years; and once took the case of 100 of the most
famous gentlemen of I'Ecole de Medicine. Not one
had more than three children. Most of them had
not more than two ; and I took this as a little index as to
the rest of France. French statistics show that there are
not more than two children to each family, on an average.
They never think of having more than two or three chil-
dren.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Do you happen to know, from your own
experience, whether checks to population of the character
referred Jto in this book are adopted by the peasant families
in France?

Dr. Drysdale : I should fike to know if I am allowed to
say vrhat I like? (Laughter.) Will it be safe? (Loud
laughter.)

225

Mr. Straight : If it will re-assure the witness, I may say
that it will be quite safe so far as I am concerned.

Dr. Drysdale : I do not know, I am sure. (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice : You can only state what are
the facts.

Dr. Drysdale : I mean : is there any privilege in a wit-
ness from being prosecuted? (Loud laughter.) I should like
to know I shall not be prosecuted by the Government.

Mr. Straight : If it is any satisfaction to Dr. Drysdale,
I will not prosecute him. (Laughter.)

The Lord Chief Justice : But we do not know who
your clients are, Mr. Straight.

Mr. Straight : I think there is not much doubt about it.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I have much doubt. (Laughter.)
You have told us as to the number of children in French
families. My question is now, whether your French
experience, as a medical man, enables you to say whether
or not checks of the description mentioned in this
pamphlet are used by the French peasantry ?

Dr. Drysdale : The first check mentioned in the
pamphlet is used universally.

Mr. Bradlaugh : It is, perhaps, not necessary to read
out this check ?

The Lord Chief Justice : I think not.

Mr. Bradlaugh : If the jury refer to page 38 of the
book, they will find this check specified, and that will be
sufficient. To the witness : You say that that check is
largely practised in France ?

Dr. Drysdale : It is practised by almost every male in
Paris, and all over the country.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I believe you are a Member of the
London Dialectical Society?

Dr. Drysdale : I am.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Were you present on the ist of July,
1868, at a meeting of that Society ? — Witness (after referring
to the minutes) : I was.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Was Lord Amberley present ?

The Lord Chief Justice : I wouldn't go into that, Mr.
Bradlaugh.

Mr. Bradlaugh: Very well ; then I won't press one word
more

Mrs. Besant (to witness) : You have stated that you have
had a large English hospital experience, and a wide experi-
ence amongst the poorer classes : is it within your experience

226

that any attempts are made by mothers to check the increase
of their families?

Dr. Drysdale : I hardly ever go to my hospital, where on
a certain day of the week I usually see about 80 or 90-
women, that there are not 5 in 6 cases of women who have
suckled children for 18 months or two years in order to*
prevent conception.

Mrs. Besant : That is the reason they give for suckling
their children so long ?

Dr. Drysdale : They will tell you so if you ask them
quietly ; but they would probably give some other reason if
other people were present. I tell them it is not a good way
to act, and advise them to find out a better.

Mrs. Besant : And the effect of this over-lactation on the
child at the breast ?

Dr. Drysdale : It is robbing the child at the breast of
its proper food, which ought to be more substantial than the
milk of the breast.

Mrs. Besant : And what is the effect on the unborn
child, supposing the mother conceives during the time she
is suckling ?

Dr. Drysdale : It suffers from want of nourishment
because it does not get enough blood, which should go to
feed it before birth.

Mrs. Besant: What is the effect of very rapid child-
bearing upon the mother herself?

Dr. Drysdale : You very often see women worn to death
by getting children too rapidly. They hardly seem fit to
keep up their own lives, and very often fall into consump-
tion.

Mrs. Besant : Is one of the results of over-large families
to gradually undermine the constitution ?

Dr. Drysdale : I think so among town mothers, though
a strong woman, with plenty of food, brought up in the
country, might, without much injury, have a large number,
say, twenty-one. (Laughter). Oh^ I have known many
women with twenty or twenty-one children, all living.
(Loud laughter.) A strong countrywoman might, perhaps,
have twenty-five — (laughter) — but among the majority of
cultivated women, and women brought up in towns, that
would be impossible.

Mrs. Besant: When the father's wage is 13s. a-week,
v/ould twenty-one children be healthy ?

Dr. Drysdale : To bring so many children into the world,

227

under such circumstances, I should think one of the greatest
social crimes a man could commit. I should look upon it
in the same light as habitual drunkenness and other social
crimes. •

Mrs. Besant : Is not faUing of the womb — to use the
common expression — very common amongst poor women?

Dr. Drysdale : It is extremely common. Indeed, when
I was obstetrical assistant at Edinburgh, it was one of the
commonest diseases among women — the principal- one, in
fact. Women ought never to get up from confinemxcnt for
some weeks after the child is born ; but these poor women
are so utterly unable to do without work that they' are
compelled to get up in a day or two. The w.)mb, being
full of blood, falls down and produces infirmity for life.

Mrs. Besant : Have you any knowledge as to endeavours
among women of the poorer classes to procure abortion ?"

Dr. Drysdale : It is not alone among the poor. -I have
known it, time after time, amongst educated ladies, who
have taken most drastic medicines to try and get rid 'of the
effects of conception. " ' '

Mrs. Besant : Would it not be better to prevent cohctp-
tion than attempt to procure abortion ? ■ • '

Dr. Drysdale : To procure abortion, I consider, is almost
as bad as murder. But I do not see any crime in prevent-
ing conception, otherwise those v/ho remain unmarried
should all be prosecuted. (Loud laughter.) - '

Mrs. Besant : Leaving that point, and returnirigi to
another part of my opening address, where I dealt with Over-
crowding— have you, in your own experience, seen many
cases of over-crowding? ■ —

Dr. Drysdale : Near to my dispensary ni Hol'born • I
have seen too miuch of it. In the neighbourhood of
Gray's Inn, where these gentlemen of the bai; abound
(laughter) — and these gentlemen of the bar might , see for
themselves if they would (laughter) — I must confess to
have been ashamed to find such an amount of misery
existing there from over-crowding. I wish that two or- three
gentlemen would only take the trouble to go into the little
courts and alleys off Chancery Lane and Gray's 'Inn Lane
and see the frightful misery and crowding there as I have
seen there. I have seen six children in one room all
huddled up together, and all down with typhus fever, the
same room being used by three adults; I have seen. such
things repeatedly, over and over again.

P 2

228

Mrs. Besant: What is the largest number of human
t)eings you have seen crowded into one room ?

Dr. Drysdale : That is the largest — six children and
three adults, with only one bed.

Mrs. Besant: Is it your experience that typhus fever
spreads most rapidly in crowded rooms ?

Dr. Drysdale : The great reason that typhus fever is so
terrible a disease is that people are crowded. In all zymotic
•diseases, if people are crowded together, when one gets it
they all get it.

Mrs. Besant : Then large families actually produce
disease ?

Dr. Drysdale : It is impossible to have health with large
crowded families.

Mrs. Besant : Does not over-crowding give rise to a ter-
rible amount of sexual vice amongst the young of both
sexes ?

Dr. Drysdale : I do not know that of my own experience,
;but one can scarcely doubt that that would be the case. I
am surgeon to the lock ward of a Hospital for fallen women,
and I know from my own experience there that prostitution
is very often brought about in consequence of over-crowding.

Mrs. Besant : The associations of over-crowding corrupt
the young mind, t suppose, and loss of modesty is followed
by prostitution ?

Dr. Drysdale : They do not know what modesty is.

Mrs. Besant : Do you know anything of disease caused
to young children by being compelled to work at a very early
age ?

Dr. Drysdale : You see, children in big families are
taken out to work very early, and premature exertion often
injures them for life. It seems to me I have had numbers
■of cases of that kind. Children are not fit to do very much
v;ork so long as they are half-developed, and early death is
often the consequence.

Mrs. Besant : But I suppose they must either work to
death or starve to death ?

Dr. Drysdale : There is no doubt hosts of children are
worked to death.

The witness then stepped down.

Mr. H. G. Bohn was next called and sworn.

Mr. Bradlaugii : Your name is Henry George Bohn, I
believe ?

Mr. Bohn : Yes,

229

Mr. Bradlaugh : And you were formerly, and until
latterly, a publisher in a very large way of business ?

Mr. BoHN : Yes, for about sixty years.

Mr. Bradlaugh : And a series of works, called Bohn's.
Scientific Series," was issued by you ?

Mr. BoHN : It was.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Did you publish a book called " Animal
Physiology," by W. B. Carpenter?
Mr. BoHN : I did.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Do you know that that book has been
largely used as a text-book in schools ?
Mr. BoHN : I do.

Mr. Bradlaugh : How long were you a publisher ?

Mr. BoHN : Always ; for the last sixty years, and for forty-
five years of that time entirely on my own account.

Mr. Bradlaugh: Had you large experience in the sale
of works on physiology ?

Mr. BoHN : I had one of the largest connections in our
trade. It was a subject I cultivated in my early days, and
nearly all works on the subject passed through my hands.
Some of them were my own property.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Have you read the pamphlet which is
the subject of the present indictment ?

Mr. BoHN : I have.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Does your experience, extending over-
forty-five years, in works on physiology, enable you to say
whether the statements in that book are statements which
you have found in many of the standard works on physio-
logy which you have published ?

Mr. BoHN : One important book which was familiar to
me years ago — De la Motte Ligniac's ^' Physical Essay on
Man and Woman in a State of Marriage," published with
plates — entirely covered your book, and gave a great deal
more. Another similar book was Venette's " Tableau de
FAmour Conjugal," of which there have been more than
forty editions.

Mr. Bradlaugh : And are you able, from your own
knowledge of this pamphlet, to say that the facts in
Carpenter's Physiology" and other books, and in the
"Fruits of Philosophy," allowing for the necessary com-
pression of the latter, are identical ?

Mr. BoHN : Substantially so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Having said there are a numher of
works on physiology v/hich have been generally sold by you,

230

containing the same statements and facts as in the " Fruits
of Philosophy,'^ have you ever been prosecuted for
obscenity ?

Mr. BoHN : I am not aware that any of them have been
molested.

Mr. Bradlaugh : You communicated with me through
your soUcitor, so that you might give this evidence ?

Mr. BoHN : I did. I felt very strongly on the subject,
because many years ago one of my publications had been
attacked by what I understood to be the action of the Society
for the Supression of Vice, a society from which I am glad
to find Mr. Beresford Hope, the vice-president, has just
withdrawn his support. I subsequently discovered that the
attack on my book was made at the instigation of some
Roman Catholic priests, but after a resolute remonstrance
on my part I heard no more of the matter. In consequence
of the interference of this society, the Society for the Sup-
pression of Vice, which I presume to be at the bottom of
the present prosecution, my successors, Messrs. Bell and Sons,
have been induced to suppress the " Memoirs of the Comte
de Grammont/' a very amusing book, "Boccaccio's Deca-
meron," the works of " Rabelais," and all the other books
forming my so-called extra volumes.

Mrs. Besant : I will only put one question to you, Mr.
Bohn ; have you ever put any restriction on the sale of
medical works ?

Mr. Bohn: None whatever; on the contrary, I should
willingly have halved the price had I thought this would
double the circulation.

This concluded the examination of the witnesses for the
defence, none of whom were cross-examined on behalf of the
prosecution.

Mr. Bradlaugh : We had intended, my lord, to call
some clergymen to speak as to over-crowding, but as that
would only lengthen the case, and is not necessary, I think
I v/ill make this the whole of the evidence. The over-
crowding is so clear that further evidence on the point
Avould not strengthen my case one whit.

Mrs. Besant : I had intended to call Mr. Smith, of the
firm of Messrs. Smith and Sons, to prove the general and un-
restricted sale of Chevasse and Bull, but that will, perhaps,
not be necessary, as I believe the fact will not be disputed.

Mr. Straight : Certainly not.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I think, my lord, as a matter of right,

231

rmyself and co-defendant are entitled to say one or two
%vords, in summing-up, to the jury.

The Lord Chief Justice : Certainly. Would you do
that to-morrow?

Mr. Bradlaugh : That would be better, my lord, as we
could then make it much more brief. Both our summings-
up would be included in the hour in which the Court opens.

Mrs. Besant : I should not take more than half an hour
to three-quarters.

Mr. Straight: The reply for the prosecution will be very
-short, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then we shaU finish to«
morrow.

Mr. Straight : Certainly, my lord, without doubt.
The Court then rose, and Mrs. Besant and Mr. Brad-
laugh were again loudly cheered as they left the hall.

232

FOURTH DAY.

THELord Chief Justice took his seat at 10.30 a.m., an$l
the Clerk having handed to him an intimation, in writings
from the jury,

The Lord Chief Justice, after reading it, said : It is not
consistent with cur procedure to put a question to a person
who is on trial ; it is not permitted by law.

Two jurymen stated that they were not aware of such a
communication having been made.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is a very pertinent question
to be put, but I cannot pass from the rules of procedure^
which do not allow any question to be put to prisoners on
their trial.

Mrs. Besant : My lord and gentlemen of the jury, in
summing up now the defence I have laid before you, I
propose to do it very briefly, because, practically, one may
say one has made the main part of one's defence, and I need
do nothing more at the end of this long trial than remind
you how much the case has become narrowed since its
opening by the learned Solicitor-General. You will
remember, gentlemen, without my going from point to-
point, or from argument to argument — I do not propose to
press any of the points on you — you will remember that
when the learned Solicitor-General opened the case he
stated that we had to deal with a thoroughly obscene book^
written with intent to deprave, using the cloak of philosophy
to cover that intent, using the colouring of marriage in
order to destroy marriage and to increase illicit intercourse,,
and that all this was done with such disgusting particularity
of language as tended to deprave the minds of the young,
making altogether a publication which he summarised as a
whole by a word of one syllable which I will not repeat. The
first point is as to the cloak of philosophy ; I think the defence
has proved that the philosophy, at least, is real; also that there
is not one wordwhichhas been putinto the philosophical part
which is in any sense impure, and if you are to judge of
the philosophy as being written with intent to deprave, it
must be because there is some other portion of the book

233

which you read into the philosophy, making that which, in
itself, is not there. As to the colouring of marriage, which
is the next point raised by the learned Solicitor-General,
I will put it to you that marriage is urged all through the
book, and that profligacy is spoken against in the strongest
terms the writer can use. Not only are profligacy and illicit
intercourse spoken against, but the writer goes further, and
warns the young of the great dangers resulting, not only
from profligacy, but also from the intemperate use of the
sexual functions. So that, I think, I may say, concerning
the cloak of philosophy and the colourable use of marriage,
that there is not one syllable in the book to warrant the
argument of the Solicitor-General. You have, then, only
to deal with the mere empty assertion of the learned counsel,
unsupported by one shadow of evidence, which he has
thought right to lay before you. As to the language having
a disgusting particularity of detail, you will remember that
it has been proved to be delicate and careful in comparison
with ordinary medical literature ; and I will put it that the
extra delicacy of Knowlton is simply because Knowlton was
writing a work for general circulation, and avoided, as much
as possible, the use of terms which, on the general ear,
would strike somewhat harshly. And I put it further, that
Miss Vickery told us that the language of Dr. Knowlton, so
far from being highly coloured, was, on the contrary, ex-
tremely mild and quiet compared with those books which
her medical studies, during the last six years, had compelled
her to peruse. You are aware, gentlemen, of the large
number of medical books we have here, and you will re-
member an intimation from his lordship, yesterday, on the
subject. My co-defendant, and myself, talked the matter
over, and I felt strongly, that it being apparently put, that
provided only the book v/ere a medical book, no objection
could be raised to the language in which the medical
details were couched, it would be taking advantage of
your patience, and of the consideration of your lordship,
if we wearied you and ourselves — and it is even more
wearying to those w^ho speak than to those who have
to listen — and so have unreasonably dragged on the
trial for some five or six days, as would have been
necessary had we gone through these books, and piled proof
upon proof as to the deUcate nature of the language used by
Knowlton. I will only say, therefore, that we had begun
with those most delicately w^orded ; and if we had gone

234

through the whole of them some would have been found to
be couched in language of so startling a character that I
^m only glad the course of justice has not compelled us to
quote it in a court like this. The only reason why we felt it
to be our duty to put these two books to you was that un-
less, gentlemen, you have some medical training, an idea of
-coarseness is inspired by the plainness of ordinary medical
language, and that idea could only be destroyed by showing
the language used in a standard medical v/ork. We may
take it that it is practically allowed that if Knowlton's is a
medical work then the contention of the learned Solicitor-
General as to a disgusting particularity of language falls to the
ground, equally with his contention of the cloak of philosophy,
or the colourable use of marriage. Thus the case is nar-
rowed down to this : Is Knowlton a medical work ? or is it,
on the contrary, an utterly obscene book, written with intent
to deprave ? So far as its being a medical work is con-
-cerned, I think I may fairly urge that the defence has proved
the accuracy of its details from the books read by my co-
defendant. I may say also that there are medical notes
right through the book referring to standard authors of
eminence who teach the same facts. We find, in referring
to Miss Vickery's evidence, that in answer to a question put
by me whether with the means of judging derived from
the experience she told us she possessed, she thought the
pamphlet to have been written by one well acquainted with
medical science at the time of its publication, she replied
that she did so consider it; and when Dr. Drysdale was in tlie
box — a man known equally in England, in America, and on
the Continent as a physician of eminence and as an author
of many scientific works — he said, in answer to a question
put to him by Mr. Bradlaugh, that he considered the work
a most excellent work, written by a scientific man, writing
with a full knowledge of his subject, and v/riting with that
care and accuracy characteristic of a scientific man. You
will remember that you had the strongest testimony as to the
thorough medical character of the work, and this is not sur-
prising when you remember that Charles Knowlton held the
diploma of Doctor of Medicine in Boston, and was the
author of many scientific works ; and I may point out to
you that some of his hypotheses have lately been verified by
experiment, showing him to have been a man of thought
beyond the ordinary range of his time. We have the fact that
40 years ago he struck on some intricate physiological points,

235

•on which his ideas have since been proved to be right, to put
•against the mere assertion of the learned counsel for the
prosecution that the pamphlet is not a medical book
written by a medical man — a scientific treatise for a
scientific purpose. To succeed, then, in the contention of
the prosecution, the prosecution must show an intent to
•deprave, and the first thing that is done to show the intent
is to urge that the book was not written in learned
language. I avow, gentlemen, that I do not see that
•obscenity couched in a learned language becomes any less
obscene, nor do I understand the contention that as
Knowlton is an obscene pamphlet we should have im-
proved Knowlton by translating him either into Latin or into
Greek. So far from that, I cannot help remembering that
the great Italian Giordano Bruno was burned to death
because he spread scientific heresies among the Italian
people in the Italian tongue ; agreeing, as he did, with one
of his contemporaries, that the dead languages were too
often used as a cloak put over science, to cover its real
emptiness, and wishing to teach the people, he insisted on
speaking in his mother tongue to the people whom he
desired to influence. The next thing that is urged to show
the desire to deprave is the unrestricted circulation of the
b)ook." I and my co-defendant quite agree that society
properly lays a restriction upon showing in shop-windows of
-Streets where people pass, not only anatomical pictures, but
also any pictures cf a coarse or a disgusting description.
I conceive that as you live in society you have no
right to be a nuisance to your neighbours, or to annoy
those who pass your shop-windows, by anything of a disgust-
ing character : and the law has defined it to be an indictable
misdemeanour to expose in a public place any disgusting
object. I allow that to the fullest extent. There are plates
in the medical books we have here which it would be most
indecent to expose in the public thoroughfares, but so far
as concerns anything short of that kind of forcing the thing
upon the public notice, I must put it that every medical
book is an unrestricted publication. The only restriction
upon such books as that of Marion Sims is the restriction of
price, and that restriction of price is not one that I think,
with all submission, ought to be listened to in a court like
this ; it would be a most unfortunate thing if, from the
highest court of justice in England, v»^hich knows no differ-
ence before the law between rich and poor, it should go

236

forth by verdict of the jury that an expensive medical book
was a pure book, while a cheap medical book was an
obscene publication, which puts its publishers in peril of
their liberty. I must remind you of what Mr. Bohn said
on this point, when he was dealing in the witness-box with
his 60 years of a publisher's life, a life which I believe all
will acknowledge to be one without blemish, and whose
standard library is one of the credits of our modern English •
literature. Mr. Bohn distinctly stated that he had published
books containing substantially the same as, and much more
than, is contained in Knowlton's Pamphlet ; that he thought
he knew the book, published very many years ago, from
which Knowlton, and Carpenter, and Kirke, had all equally
been taken ; that that book was out of print, but was now in
the British Museum ; that he had read a similar book before
he was twenty-one years of age ; and that during his whole
publishing life of sixty years he had never known one case
where a prosecution was brought against a physiological
treatise on the ground that it was obscene. He told us he
remembered about people being warned as to selling the
tales of Rabelais, and the " Memoirs of the Comte de
Grammont." But this has nothing to do with the selling a
physiological treatise, and Mr. Bohn told us that if he had
known any way of selling twice as many as he did he would
have done so. As to the argument of restriction, I reminded
you that we had these books here ; I personally bought one of
these medical treatises ; I obtained another through the
post ; Mr. Parris bought some of them, and a young man
of eighteen or nineteen years of age also bought some that
might be characterised as strictly medical books ; I only
put that to you to show how much easier it is to talk of
restriction than to practise it; nor is any effort made to
keep them from the general public, else why are these books
advertised in the columns of the daily papers, as well as
where doctors would naturally look for them, in the Lancet y
the medical journal ? Then we are told, that though these
details are necessary for doctors, they are not necessary for
the public. I would urge upon you that poor women need
to know the facts concerning menstruation and pregnancy
quite as much as do the doctors, for they are often unable,
from their poverty, to obtain the advice of medical men.
It was acknowledged by the prosecution that no kind of
accusation had been brought against Dr. Chavasse or Dr.
Bull, and it would have been, indeed, rather awkward if a

237

principle had been laid down which would apply adversely
in the case of books issued by one of the Government, of
whom the learned Solicitor-General is the adviser. But if
these details show an intent to deprave, I would ask you to
carry your memories back, for one moment, to the terrible
passage read by Mr. Bradlaugh, from Marion Sims, and ask
whether it is not a much greater depravation to suggest
putting a woman under chloroform for a certain purpose ;
whether that is not a suggestion whereby a wicked person
might inflict a most cruel wrong on a helpless woman.
Then we come to Carpenter, of whom the prosecution can-
not pretend that it is written for medical men, for the in-
struction in Carpenter is not couched in the phraseology you
generally find in books intended specially for medical students.
That book, as well as Kirke's Handbook, are books circu-
lated in schools for girls — the girls whose purity of mind
the prosecution is so anxious to guard. In speaking of
generally-circulated books, I drew your attention to a book,
sold for a shilling by Longman & Co., in which the checks
advocated by Knowlton for a good purpose are advocated
for a bad purpose. The use of an injection is therein
advocated for the purpose of keeping an unfortunate class
of women in a state which will enable them to carry on their
most unhappy trade. If you give a verdict against us, I
cannot but think that it will be a most unfair verdict, for I
cannot help remembering that it is not only in this country
that such books are sold. We find the French Government
authorising a book to be sold for one franc — and my lord,
with his knowledge of France, will know that a book cannot
be hawked by a colporteur without bearing the imprint of
the Government — a book advocating such checks to prevent
over-large families. I am the more encouraged to have
faith in my case from the fact that one of the leading
writers of the Paris press, Yves Guyot, one of the leading
French writers on law. Professor Emile Acollas, as well as
one of the champions of the people. General Garibaldi —
all stand round us on our Defence Committee to show their
feeling as to the struggle in which we are engaged. Gentle-
men, not only is there no intent shown in the book to
deprave, but, on the contrary, there is much to disprove
that allegation of the Solicitor-General. I would repeat to
you the answer which Dr. Drysdale made to the Lord Chief
Justice, when the distinct question was put to him, as a
medical man, ^*Is it your opinion that the book is calculated

23^

to arouse prurient or immodest feelings ? " To this the reply-
was, " No, my lord ; certainly not." I put that opinion of
a medical man against the allegation of the Solicitor- General,
and I point also to the utter omittance by Knowlton of
every unnecessary word of description ; I remind you of
his careful avoidance of any outside description, which
might tend to arouse those feelings that might be aroused
by the work of Dr. Carpenter. The prosecution is now
driven to make its case rest on the advocacy of checks after
marriage, which is the only point remaining to them. You
have seen that Dr. Fleetwood Churchill advocates checks
after marriage of a far more terrible character than any of
those which Knowlton proposes. You will remember the
proposition put by my co-defendant yesterday was that it
is lawful to advocate checks after marriage, provided that
those checks do not destroy life. I am quite content to
rest my case upon that contention. There are but three
checks after marriage — celibacy, the check advocated by Dr.
Fleetwood Churchill after conception, and the check before
conception advocated by Knowlton. The first — that of
celibacy — is impossible, for you cannot teach people absolute
celibacy after marriage, and uuless celibacy is absolute it
could be of no sort of use. To teach it would simply mean
that men and women were to go through the ceremony of
marriage as a mere empty mockery. This is a propositioa
which, if carried out, would be injurious to health even to
the rich people, who would be able to live apart under the
same roof I ask you what it would be to the poor married
couples, obliged to keep in the same room, on the same bed ?
I ask you if the poor man's life is to be one long and terrible
temptation, lest he should commit the sin of bringing into
the world children he cannot support ? The check advo-
cated by Churchill I look upon as almost a crime; from my
point of view I cannot but think it wrong that, when a
doctor has found that a woman cannot bring a living child
into the world, he should counsel a check after conception,
instead of before. This is a suggestion so horrible, so re-
volting, that' most women would rather, by going the full
time, run the risk of perishing in the birth-struggle than
adopt such a check ; I feel that to be a most immoral pro-
position ; and if the learned Solicitor-General had turned
his attention in that direction instead of in ours, he might
have had some ground on which to base his prosecution.
The only other check is a check which we advocate, a check

239

before conception ; I am only contending for the principle
that Knowlton lays down, and for the right of doctors to
discuss this question. You have heard of the efforts of the
poor to find some sort of check to prevent the rapid increase
of their families. Miss Vickery, in answer to a question
I put to her, told you that poor married women seriously
injure their health by over-lactation, imagining that it will
stop conception. Dr. Drysdale carried this further, and
said it was injurious both to the mother, to the child at the
breast, and to the unborn child, and that the most terrible
diseases resulted from those w^omen resorting to this check
in their ignorance. He told us that not only do women
strive in that fashion to meet the terrible evil with which we
are trying to grapple, but that, in his own practice, he found
cases of both rich and poor, who used the most deleterious
drugs, all this being done with the same hope of warding off
pregnancy, and injury to health is thus caused, instead of
the moral means advocated by Knowlton being used-
You have heard of the checks adopted by the French
against over-large families, and yet you know the affection
the French entertain for their children; parental and
filial love is one of the distinguishing features of that nation.
I ask you not to put on a great people the brand of immo-
rality for practising that which is thoroughly moral, and I
beg you that it should not be said that what is sanctioned
throughout France, as a duty to society, is put down by the
criminal law in England. Dr. Drysdale has told us of the
evils of over-crowding; he told us how he saw mother^
father, six children, and another relative, all down with
typhus fever, in one room, and he told us that disease is the
direct result of large families ; you will remember how he
said that too many women did not even know w^hat modesty
was because of the conditions of their youth. I ask you if
we are to go to prison from this court because we try to
make modesty something more than an unknown word ?
We have only called three witnesses, because the facts are
so indisputable; but if we have injured our case by not
calling more, it would, of course, be a great cause of regret
to us ; but I imagined that to call more would only be a
repetition of the same thing over and over again. I said,
in my opening speech, that it was my intention to call the
Rev. Mr. Horsley and the Rev. Mr. Headlam into the box
but the case closed sooner than I had anticipated, and I
had released Mr. Horsley from attendance yesterday, as

240

his duties required his presence at the House of Deten-
tion. I did not ask, however, this morning, to be allowed
to call any further witness, our case being really proved
beyond possibility of reasonable dispute. I ask you
now, gentlemen, what proof has been given by the pro-
secution of our intent to deprave, of our hatred of mar-
riage, or of our intention to promote illicit intercourse?
The intention of the writer of this book and of its pub-
lishers is the same ; and whatever is Knowlton's, that inten-
tion is also that of myself and my co-defendant. The
intention of one is the intention of the others. If Dr.
Knowlton uses the word marriage " in a colourable sense,
we have used it in the same. If the author disguises his
evil intent under the word " marriage," we have used the
same guilty weapon in publishing his pamphlet. Whatever
tlie one intended in writing the work, we have intended the
same thing in publishing it and in distributing it broadcast
throughout the land. I leave that question of intention upon
perfectly intelligible grounds. But what proof of an evil
intention has been brought before you ? You must give a
clear and definite answer to the question before you can con-
vict us under this indictment ; and upon this point, perhaps,
you will allow me to remind you of the verdict that was
returned in the case of the King v, Eaton, where the jury
unanimously decided against the book, but as it was not
published with a criminal intention, no verdict of guilty was
recorded. The case was carried to the Court of King's
Bench, and there a verdict, meant to exclude evil intent, was
returned, and no sentence followed. That was all the more
strange because the judge summed up evidently against the
prisoner, and there the publisher was not fortunate enough
to be tried, as we are, before a fair and upright judge, one
who administers the law with the equity and impartiality seen
in this court. That case of the King v. Eaton fell to the
ground, after a double trial, and I ask you whether we can
be seriously held to be open to be convicted of obscenity if
we have no evil intention to set ourselves deliberately to
debase and corrupt the youth of this country ? When you
are considering the question of intention, it will be well
for you to contrast the course which has been followed
by the prosecution right through, with the course which
has been adopted by myself and by my co-defendant —
the utter dissimilarity between the tactics of the two
parties — the concealment which characterised the prose-

241

cution, and the straightforwardness and openness of the
defence. Remember, I pray you, that up to this moment,
the name of the prosecutor in this case has remained con-
cealed. We do not know who our prosecutor is ; and so far
as we have any statements at all on the subject, those of the
learned Solicitor-General and the junior counsel are directly
contradictory to the letter of their own solicitor. It may be
a prosecution by the Government, by the police, by a
magistrate, or by some individual who is actuated in the
matter by some private spite or malice. We have no knowledge
how it has arisen, whence it comes, and I ask you not to
leave this out of your consideration when dealing
with this case. And what is our position ? Why,
from the first we have been perfectly open and frank.
We told the prosecution what we were going to
do. Weeks ago we sent them notice of every book we
were going to use, the titles of all the works upon which we
relied. And that frankness has been carried out from
beginning to end of this prosecution. Do you think that if
'we had had the criminal intention imputed to us we should
have proceeded in that way ? And yet we stand charged
with a criminal offence before his lordship. Will you, I ask
you gentlemen, give a verdict of guilty against me ? You
do not know very much of my life, it is true, and you may
not be able to judge from it how far such a criminal charge
is well or ill founded. You are not able to judge how
thoroughly absurd — if it were not fraught with such danger
— how utterly ludicrous this charge of intent to deprave
and corrupt is when levelled against me. I was not, as my
■co-defendant said he was, born among the poor — I have not
the glory, I have not the honour of having risen from among
them by sheer brain power and persistent labour, to stand
here in right of the position I have made, I have not so won
that right of speech which I take to-day. No, that honour
is not mine ; but do you think I should have put myself in
this position, do you think I should have placed myself
in this danger, merely from an intent to deprave and corrupt
humanity ? You do not know much of me, it is true, but
.surely you can judge something of me by my speech, by my
argument before you. Am I one whom you dare convict
of intent to deprave and to corrupt ? You may convict me,
you may send me to prison, you may bid me herd with those
depraved and dissolute women whose very language
v/ould be agony to me, worse agony than I can

242

put into words — unless, indeed, that, even in that prison^
I might even there find means of prosecuting my work
among my degraded fellow-prisoners, among the wretched
women with whom I should be obliged to consort, as I have
for long years carried it on in the cottages and homes o-f
the poor. You cannot give a verdict of guilty against me,
guilty of intent to deprave — my whole life gives the lie to
it. Think a moment what such a verdict means. It means
destruction of all I have worked for in the past, humilia-
tion in all the labours of the future. You cannot convict
me, and so take from me whatever influence for good I may
have won. Yet, no, not the loss of my influence among the
poor I have worked for. I cannot believe that, whatever
your verdict may be, that there will be any loss of influence
among them, for they will know how hard I have worked
for them even in this court. You cannot convict me.
Think for one moment upon all those who are watching this
trial with the keenest anxiety. Can you let it go forth from
this court, and from you, gentlemen, that there is to be no
word of consolation or of comfort for the downtrodden, no
change in the brutality and the misery of those overcrowded
hovels which we seek to purify — that you tell of no star of
hope for those who are writhing under poverty, and racked
by pain — no word, no remedy for their misery, no breaking
of the chains that bind them, no deliverance from the
despair into which they are fast settling down ? You can-
not convict me if you think of the past and look forward
to the future. Think of the juries in this great country
who have over and over again stood between tyrannical
Governments and the oppressed and helpless brought before
the power of a court. Think v/hat juries in this country
have done. They have stayed the march of power against
liberty, have widened freedom, and have protected discus-
sion. Juries, too, have also somc^times done irreparable
harm, have bound faster the chain upon the slave, and have
been assistants of v/rong for the sake of a momentary
applause. Think, I pray you, of those juries who declared
in favour of Horne, Tooke, and Thelwall. Make them
your examples, and set us free to-day. A verdict of guilty ?
You cannot give it if you speak for justice and for truth, if
you believe in innocence and in purity. We cannot yield,
for we are working for the cause of the poor and the right
to speak. But if, by some misdirection, some mismanage-
ment of justice, you give a verdict against us to-day, you will

243

be doing v/hat John Stuart Mill spoke of, you will be corn-
mitting one of those crimes by which the men of one genera-
tion surprise and amaze posterity. A verdict of guilty ? If
you do this thing, remember that it will be to brand innocence
with the infamy of guilt. If you do commit this wrong, then,
from your verdict of guilty, we appeal to the verdict to a wider
court, of a grander jury. We appeal from you to the people
of the civilised world, from this bar to the bar of public
opinion, and whatever your verdict may be, that greater
jury will bring in a verdict of Not Guilty against us.
We appeal from you to the verdict of the history which shall
judge us when we have all passed away — that history which
shall bring us in not guilty, whatever the verdict may be to-
day. History, that weighing us in the far-off to-morrow^
shall say that this man and this woman who stood on their
trial here, v/ho, knowing the misery of their time, the suffer-
ings of their fellows, the agony of the people of their day,
joined their hands and their lives together to bring salvation
to the homes of the poor, did good service in their day and
in their generation — that history shall say to us, ^'Well done,"
whatever* your verdict may be.

The address was received with applause in court.

Mr. Bradlaugh said : Gentlemen, whatever may be your
verdict, and I do not think you will give one which you do
not think to be right, I and my co-defendant owe you thanks
for the very great patience with which you have listened to
what we have felt it to be our duty to urge ; and as my co-
defendant has done, I, too, will try to show those thanks by
at least abridging as mucli as possible the few words I have
now the right to address to you in summing up the argu-
ments I have thought it necessary to submit to you. It is,
I think, nov,^ fairly conceded that if it is lawful to advocate
any checks upon over-population after marriage, we do not
in this book say one word to advocate anything against the
institution of marriage itself There is no word here that is
redundant, prurient, unjust, or unfair ; and the real issue
which you will have to decide, and in which you will have
to give a verdict — and, after all, the ultimate decision in
this case rests with you — is this : that men in England, in
the nineteenth century, and the latter quarter of the century
— that men in England, where scientific discussion is
free and unfettered — free beyond what is allowed in any
other country of the world — shall here stop, once and for
all, at any rate so far as their verdict can stoD it, the discus-

Q 2

244

sion of the checks to over-population, I will not attempt
to insult you by in any tashion going over again all that
which in your kindness you permitted me to go over in the
long address with which I am afraid I wearied you. I have
now only one difficulty present upon my mind with regard
to that address ; and it is whether, where it was needful to
go through those medical details, some of which I saw were
so distinctly unpleasant to you — as I shall ask you to
believe that they were to me, and have been dur-
ing the last six or seven weeks that I have been obhged
to study them — whether I in any fashion weakened the elo-
quent pleadings of my co-defendant, because in the school
in which I have been trained — the rude school of experience
in the world — in which I have studied and have been pushed
about, I have learned that the want of tact is about as great
a fault as any man can commit. Well, I felt that I was
bound to show from some of those books that the book
which was impeached in this court did not deal with the
matter in hand either impertinently, with undue particularity,
with immorality with prurience, or with redundancy; but thatl
on the contrary, it proved in a just, a plain, a simple abridg-
ment that which it intended, and gave to poor people the
knowledge thought needful for them, written so that they
might understand it, without one word to raise feelings that
ought not to be raised. I will ask you to believe that in the
oral evidence that we have called — and I do not think Ave
have troubled you with more of that than was necessary —
we have a repetition and corroboration of the same kind of
evidence that I have drawn from the books. If you allow
me, I just w^ant to add one w^ord to that which has fallen
from ray co-defendant regarding the justice and open-
ness of our case. I gave to the prosecution, at very
considerable trouble, the name of every book I w^as
going to use, and in the two books I used yesterday,
I gave the precise references to each page to be
quoted and its bearing upon the corresponding page of
Knowlton, where the same subject is dealt wdth. We did
not, it is true, give every page and every reference through-
out these books, because to annotate them was a work of
great time and great labour, but we gave the references so
far as we had gone, and a great many which w^e had not used
at all. We called attention to every passage in the first
books which we were going to use, in order that they might
be able, accurately, to follow every line of our defence.

245

Was that the conduct of criminals ? Was that the conduct
of those actuated by intention to corrupt by the unfair use
of the word marriage, or of those who would use the word
merely to conceal their desires under the word to promote
something worthy of punishment here? The books that I an-
notated are amongst the best of their kind, and you may
judge from the rate at which I got through the two I used
yesterday — though they were nothing like the thickness of
several others — that my address, as originally intended, would
have occupied some days. I felt the difficulty of doing as
I intended even before the suggestion was given by his lord-
ship. I felt the difficulty of keeping you, gentlemen, from
your business advocations, taking up the time of the
Court and of all connected with it, while I went
over detail after detail ; but, on the other hand, I also felt
that it was necessary to do something, not, perhaps, so
much for myself as to clear my co-defendant from the
charge on which she was indicted before you. I also felt it
necessary because of the words that were used by the learned
counsel for the prosecution in opening this case, because if
they had not been refuted they might have been taken as-
evidence, or, at any rate, as being incapable of refutation.
However, I will say no more about that. Take now the
oral evidence which we offered you. Remember that the
witnesses did not come here predisposed in favour of a
certain case or a certain theory. Miss Vickery, who, asked
of one particular of which she was not certain, at once said
so, and did not try to answer what she did not know. She
did not come here to support persons guilty of possible
crime, or of anything which in her view was a crime, but she
came here to give testimony from the knowledge and expe-
rience which she has gained in her profession. She was not
prepared to come here and support those whose views on this
point, in her opinion, would have been a stigma upon her
professional honour. She is a woman, and she read this
book without seeing anything shocking, anything indecent,,
and you can judge of the value of her opinion by the cha-
racter of her evidence, in which there was nothing audacious,
'^ither in the manner in which it is given or in the treatment of
he subject. Dr. Drysdale from his wider experience, gained
by his long association with hospital practice, was able to
speak more fully and thoroughly of all this. Dr. Drysdale,
I think, proved that within his own knowledge this book had
circulated in London for twenty-five years, and during that

246

time liad remained unchallenged by any prosecution until
now. Again, upon this point, Mr. Bohn — a gentleman
entirely unconnected with either of us, one of the most
famous publishers of our times, one who has not only an
English or a European, but a world-wide, reputation from
his well-knovv'n series of classical and standard works, a
gentleman retired from his business and living in privacy,
who could feel no necessity upon him of mixing himself up
with this case, or with a book Avhich has been characterised
as this has — Mr. Bohn came forward and told you that he had
been a publisher on his own account for forty-lve years,
and that altogether he had been connected with the publish-
ing business for a period of nearly sixty years. He has,
therefore, great experience in publishing books, and full
knowledge of the character of those that are sold openly.
Indeed, he has himself published a great many phvsiological
works containing discussion of the very same matters, only
that they were discussed with more particularit} of detail,
and v/ere more full in some cases. His works have been
issued freely for niany years, and he told 3^ou thnt he knew
this work had been in circulation for a long time. He also
told you that a work so rare that it could only b':^ found in
the library of the British Museum was the foundation
work upon which those of Knowlton, Carpenter, and
Klrke were mainly, if not entirely, founded. 1 am not
now alluding to Carpenter's ''Animal Physiology," but
to his ''Human Physiology," which I referied to at
some length yesterday, and which I told you was used as a
handbook and a school-book. There was no neces:>Tty on Mr.
Bohn to come forward and give evidence. Now, I wa nt to make
this furtlier remark, that all this evidence was unimpeached
and unimpeachable, and that none of the counsel on the other
side attempted to cross-examine any of the witnesses. I do
not say that with any ulterior intention, or put it unfairly to
you against the prosecution, for I wish, on the contrary, to give
them every credit for having left it open to us to call any
evidence we chose, and not to shut out any answer that
might come from these witnesses ; and when I say that, I
do not mean to make it a matter of reproach to the prose-
cution that they did not cross-examine ; I hope I may say
that the evidence of the witnesses we called may help you
in coming to a decision upon your verdict. I want to re-
mind you, also, because it may weigh against me — although
in common with my co-defendant, I may say that I have not

247

taken up this case in any spirit of bravado or defiance — that
you should not pay any attention to the publicity, or, per-
haps, notoriety, of my name, for a man's name may become
notorious justly as well as unjustly, and one must not always
listen to what the public impression regarding a man is. I
may, therefore, state generally that this question is to me no
new question ; that for many years I have advocated this
subject in public ; that I have issued a journal declared to
be Malthusian in its policy for nearly twenty years, and, as
I told you before, Lord Amberley referred to it and to me in
a speech which he made at a science assembly in 1868, and
thanked me for having pressed this question upon the atten-
tion of the working-classes, and the same estimate of my
labours in this direction has been left on record by that
eminent thinker John Stuart Mill. Gentlemen, I should
have been disloyal to my views enunciated long ago, to my
programme in connection with the population question issued
some twenty years ago, and thoroughly believed in by me
ever since, if I had not defended this action. And, gentle-
men, I ask you, I ask you confidently — do not think me too
bold or too presumptuous when I use the word confidence —
for your verdict of not guilty. Let me remind you again
what the proposition is for which I contend — the proposition
I have already put to you in my address, and stated again
yesterday. It is this : Is it lawful or not to advocate the
application of checks to the evils of population, provided
that such checks do not destroy the foetus after conception,
nor the child after birth ? If I needed to strengthen my
case, which I don't think I do, I might show you by a
reference to the extracts which have already been given to
you from Churchill tliat he ventured to advocate abortion,
and I think you will say it is far more moral to prevent, if
possible, all conception, than to have recourse to such a check
as that. My co-defendant has put that point before you very
forcibly, and I refrained from characterising my sense of the in-
ducement offered to procure abortion or to bring on premature
labour, because, as I thought, my medical knowledge is not
profound enough to enable me— for I doubt whether a man,
unless he be trained and profoundly read in medicine, has a
right to express a decided opinion on such a subject to
enable me with confidence to dogmatize on the question.
From our standpoint we believe that to touch human life in
any way whatever, or in any fashion — whether overtly or
otherwise — is the highest crime. When it comes to be a

248

question of saving the child or of losing the mother, and in
that crisis a man who is responsible, a man who has been
trained to the profession of medicine, and has had large
experience in the practice of it, comes to a decision one way
or the other, he has the right to act ; but on such a solemn
question it is not necessary for me, nor for my defence, that
I should urge one way or the other here. What I do say
is that to touch human life wantonly is one of the highest
crimes. I leave myself then in your hands, asking you,
when the learned Solicitor-General comes to address you,
to remember that it is to you I leave the refutation of any
matters in his speech which I cannot then deal with, and
which, if I had the right, I would not urge myself There
is another speech to which you have to listen, and to which
I for one shall listen with very great attention ; there will be
the address of his lordship, which will have the greatest
weight with me, as doubtless it will deserve to be with you,
and I will hear it, whether it be for or against me, with
reverence and respect, believing that in either case it will be
just, if it may be severe ; but I will ask you, gentlemen, to
remember that, after all, the ultimate deliverance is in your
hands, and unless in your heart of hearts you feel that we
intended to deprave and corrupt public morality by the
publication of this book, I ask you to say that we are not
guilty of the charge preferred against us. And after you
have delivered your verdict, I leave myself to the greater
verdict of enlightened public opinion, the verdict which
carries weightier and remoter issues than any verdict
here can do ; and thus I leave myself in your hands.

The Solicitor-General : I do not, gentlemen, wish to
add to the inordinate length of this discussion by any serious
prolongation of it by many words, and so my remarks to
you will be very brief The question you have to try is a
very simple one, though the broad one may be very intricate
indeed. Let me say one word — and it shall be but one —
as to the matters so ably urged upon you by the defendants
in this case, and which do not properly arise out of the
issue before you at all. You have heard it avowed by both
the defendants that they challenged this inquiry, and tha
they raised the question before you by giving notice to th
police that at certain hours and in a certain place on e
particular day they would sell this book to anybody tha^.
might present themselves as purchasers. There is a police
man, who is here as the prosecutor, in the ordinary sense o

249

the term ; but it appears to me that whoever the prosecutor
may be that is quite immaterial to the issue before you.
Whether it is a policeman, or the authorities that are behind
the policeman, it is quite certain that if the persons who
challenged the prosecution had not been brought before
you, the persons who have claimed the right to circulate
this book to any persons who might present themselves and
offer sixpence for it, they would have been entitled to say,
and you will judge whether they would have availed them-
selves of that or not, that they were selling the book openly
in the City of London, after having given notice to the
authorities that they would do so. Then the authorities w^ere
placed in this dilemma : either they must institute proceed-
ings against these persons — and a most unfortunate prose-
cution I admit it is, and, as I admitted to you at the first,
and repeat to you now^, a most mischievous prosecution in
its character, and, probably, in its result — or they must
have taken the other alternative, admit what they considered,
and what they still consider, something more mischievous
still — the admission by the proper authorities that this book
might openly be published and circulated in the streets of
London. That was the dilemma with w^iich we had to
deal, and the circumstances under which we felt bound to
interfere. The prosecution is one which, I admitted to you
at first, was likely to have the most serious effect ; and I
think I may now put it to you that it has, since, as the
defendants have told you, the attention to the book has
raised its circulation from, comparatively, a trifling to the
enormous amount of 125,000 copies. It appears to me a
most disastrous thing that it should have been so ; but,
from their point of view, it is not so, for they think the
book should be circulated as wddely as possible. But those
who take the opposite view think that it is indeed inde-
cent, and likely to deprave and corrupt the morals of the
people. What were they to do ? Were they to allow it to
be circulated in that way, or to attempt to suppress it, as in
future I hope it will be suppressed, by the strong hand of
the law ? That observation reminds me of another, and
that is, that the circulation of this book is not an unim-
portant observation in relation to another question. It is
unfair to suppose that if this had been a medical book,
treating of the liver, or the brain, or the stomach, or any
other organs but those which it did treat of, that it would
have reached the circulation it had done. Why is it that

250

it has been circulated to that extent ? Because, unfortu-
nately, in a very great number of persons, particularly
in the young, there is a prurient curiosity on subjects of
this sort, books would reach a circulation of many thou-
sands, while, if it had been a treatise on the other
organs of the body it would, probably, not have been
many hundreds. That is the sort of thing that this is. Let
us go back to the question here. We must distinguish
between the use of words (no persons are more able to use
Avords in a more fallacious sense than the two defendants
who have addressed you) — the motive and intention of the
persons in circulating a book may be one thing, and the
motive, intention, and effect of the book when circulated
may be a totally different thing, and as I said to you origi-
nally, I did not care to inquire what the motives of the
persons may have been. I would rather invite you — although
so.T»e misrepresentations have been made on their behalf — I
invite you to accept, for the purpose of this inquiry, the sug-
gestion made that their conduct was actuated by the desire
to benefit their species. Be it so. But there are some
persons who take a reverse view of what is likely to be for
the benefit of their species, and the question is, what this
book will do w^hen circulated? It is an entire misapprehen-
sion to suppose that a man's virtues, the desire of one's
mind to benefit his fellow-creatures, will shield them from
responsibility if the character of the book published is one
Avhich will corrupt and deprave the morals.

The Lord Chief Justice : But here they are distinctly
charged with intending to vitiate and corrupt morals.

The Solicitor-General : Yes, my lord, because every-
body in a criminal court must be taken to apprehend the
natural consequences of his acts, and if the natural conse-
quences of the act is that it will deprave and corrupt the
morals of persons among whom that person's book is circu-
lated, he must be taken to intend that.

The Lord Chief Justice : But you seem to me to acquit
them of any such intent, while the indictment distinctly
charges them with it. It is a strange state of things, although
that may turn out to be a legal view of the case. It will
certainly be a startling result if the person who is represent-
ing the prosecution in this case — the Solicitor-General of
England — says that the defendants do not intend to corrupt
the morals, and at the same time, notwithstanding, their in-
dictment charges this, and they should be found guilty
of having so intended and so done.

251

The Solicitor-General : I shall illustrate what I wish
to show, my lord. Now, there is a sect in India, as all of us
know, who advocate murder.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then their intent is to
murder.

The Solicitor-General : So I say that this book is in
effect to corrupt the morals. I care not what the intention
was in the mind of the man not connected with the book
itself I shall put for your consideration that this sect of
whom I speak hold it to be a holy sacrifice to their Deity
whom they wish to worship, to sacrifice human life, and if
they, in that sense, meaning to do right, should circulate a
book which suggested the enforcement and necessity of the
Thug practice, who could doubt that that was an indict-
able offence, and a misdemeanour in this country ? I shall
here (not that I admit the motives of these persons put
forward as guiding them), but I say I rather invite you to
accept that without inquiry for the purpose of the argument.
Their notion is that the population ought to be limited, that
it would be a desirable thing that conception should be
prevented. I say that that is contrary both to the law of
God and the law of man, and if they choose to circulate
a document of that sort, which is intended to produce
that result, and intended to produce that result in that
way, I say that it is immoral, and under the circumstances
of the case, an obscene book, and one which ought to be
condemned by any jury before whom this question might
come. I rather would protest against arguing, as some of
the defendants have endeavoured to argue .it, as if it had
been necessary to go into some abstruse and recondite
questions of poHtical economy. I say that this is a dirty,
filthy book, and the test of it is that no human being would
allow that book to lie on his table ; no decently educated
English husband would allow even his wife to have it, and
yet it is to be told to me, forsooth, that anybody may have
this book in the City of .-London or elsewhere, who can pay six-
pence for it ! It does not require any abstruse or recondite
arguments. The object of it is to enable persons to have
sexual intercourse, and not to have that which in the order
of Providence is the natural result of that sexual inter-
course. That is the only purpose of the book, and all the
instruction in the other parts of the book leads up to
that proposition. Is not that so? Is not that calcu-
lated to deprave and destroy the morals of the persons

252

among whom it may be circulated? Look at the object of i
the proposition and the contents, that a man and woman j
may [" marry and yet Umit their family," is a paraphrase of j
what was said here]. First of all, is that, or is it not, calcu- |
lated to deprave the public morals ? The recommendation, ;
indeed, is that it may be done under the sanction of mar- \
riage. Do you limit your sanction, as the original book \
appears to ha\^ intended, as the private companion for \
young married couples ? Now, gentlemen, I should also :
submit to you that it is an obscene book. Are we to argue
it on that point ? There is an unreality in the argument. j
If any boy and girl, of sixteen or seventeen, may go to !
Stonecutter Street, and buy it for sixpence, and when it is j
in their hands you are to suppose that the suggestion that ]
this is to be done after marriage, will have a powerful effect
upon the young inflamed passions of these young persons,
and what they will consider themselves only to be done :
under the restraint of marriage. A young man and woman j
have this book put into their hands. They are unmarried ; !
there are means in the shop of every chemist which can be
obtained for one shilling, whereby [^'they may give way to .
their passions without fear of results we again paraphrase \
for our readers' sakes]. I submit to you, that this is a
matter to be dealt with, not on abstruse considerations, but
with a little manly common sense. Let every man of common ;
sense ask himself what is the inevitable result of dissemi- \
nating such things among the common people ? They are
to study this, forsooth, to study these physiological details,
which might do when we reverted to our original state of ,
innocence, and entirely get rid of the ordinary state of i
decency which keeps certain subjects from common observa- '
tion and conversation. But the common sense of mankind ]
recognises the fact that we are not perfectly pure nor per- :
fectly innocent. ^' Avoid temptation '' is the Christian i
exhortation ; is this, or is it not, temptation to circu- ,
late a pamphlet of this sort amongst the young? Ask
yourselves what the inevitable result would be, and when j
we look at the third chapter, up to which all the j
rest of it leads .... [the learned Solicitor-General is \
here too coarse for the common people " to read, and
it is too much trouble to veil him in Latin, and impossible '
to paraphrase him]. What underlies all this means that you ;
must have free discussion in everything, and that there must ;
be an absolute free discussion to everybody. That seems j

253

to be the suggestion made more than once by both the de-
fendants. But that is a question, of course, which the
tribunal which has to decide this question — the tribunal of
the average English mind is the best that can be obtained.
That is the question you have to determine. Is it, or is it
not an obscene publication ? It is suggested, Why you may
collect from various books, from various medical works,
equivalent passages to this ? Be it so. What then ? You
may collect from Johnson's Dictionary the foulest and most
obscene language in the world, by putting the words together.
What is the difference ? Who do you suppose would go and
pay the two or three guineas for a medical work with plates
for the express purpose of looking at the one plate which
might represent the reproductive organs, and which treated
of the diseases to which they are subject, and of the mode
in which they are treated just to satisfy a prurient curiosity ?
Is that an equivalent publication to the one we have here ?
We will put that a medical book and the circulation of it
under certain circumstances might be a most improper
thing. The book itself might, being circulated in that par-
ticular way, be a most improper thing to do, and properly
form the subject of an indictment. But we are not dealing
with that question here. We are dealing with a book which
does not profess to treat of diseases ; what it professes to
treat is the destruction of the conceptive power after the
sexual act has taken place, and that is the thesis which is
put forward before you. Gentlemen, of course it is for
you to say whether this is a book which can pro-
perly be circulated in the way this book has claimed
to be circulated ; and let there be no mistake
about it. This is the question which I invite you
to consider. This is not a question of whether this
matter might or might not be discussed with certain restric-
tions, and under certain circumstances. The claim is here
put to you to affirm that that claim ought to be conceded to
circulate this book in this manner. It is not necessary for
me to do anything more than to ask you to read the book ;
and let me in one word— and I decline to go into their long
discussions about the questions which might or might not
arise — I ask you to treat it very shortly and very plainly.
Is this book a book when circulated in this manner — is it
calculated by the tendency of the work itself (never mind
the motives of the persons who circulated it) — is the tendency
of the book, which they admit they circulated, and which,

254

if they succeed in gaining your verdict, they will say that
you have justified them in circulating — is that a book, or is
it not a book, calculated to degrade and destroy public
morals ? If it is, then there are no circumstances which
justify them in its publication. There are no circumstances
which justify them by a supposed relief to human suffering,
or anything of that sort ; there is no such justification as
may seem proper, though^ probably, it is a medical work
aimed at the cure or the prevention of disease. That which
the work was supposed to do is, as I venture to submit to
you, to recommend to the people a mode which is both
contrary to the law, w^hich is immoral, which is wicked in
itself, and that by describing with minute particularity the
organs comprised in the reproductive system ; and, having
described these details, proceeds with a degree of detail
which I described before as filthy — and I do not retract my
w^ords — to describe the sexual act, and what follows
thereon, with a degree of filthy detail, and all that be-
cause, they say, we are entitled to recommend to
you the practice of checking conception and preventing
life, and assume for themselves that, while they agree
that if conception proceeds to a certain extent (I know
not to Avhat particular extent), it is wrong, they assume
to themselves to discover at what moment the process of
fecundity begins, and yet, after a certain time, it is not
lawful, w^hile before that time it is. I deny both principles.
I say it is of itself immoral and wicked, and having sub-
mitted that to you, you will judge for yourselves whether
it is true. If that is true, of course a minute description by
which that principal object is to be effected does not become
more lawful or more proper, or less obscene or less likely to
deprave the public morals ; because a minute particularity is
given, not as a medical work, or that it is a work of science,
but because it is a matter able to be discussed in public as
a matter of national welfare, and, therefore, every boy and
girl in the City of London may buy the book for 6d. I
said before you were the guardians of the public morals, and
the defendants seem to have fully adopted that, and re-
commended it to you. The case is, therefore, fairly before
you. You are to say, on looking at this work, whether it is
not an obscene work, and whether it may to-morrow — after
your verdict is given, if in favour of it — be sold to anybody
who applies for it, and the only reason I refer to the price is
because it is that which enables anybody to circulate it, and

255

get it to be bought with the greatest faciHty. Everybody
can, therefore, at that cost, go to Stonecutter Street to-mor-
row, after your verdict is returned, if your verdict should be
in favour of the defendants, and buy this book, and scatter it
broadcast over the country. I cannot believe that any English
jury, having any reverence for the marriage state, for the
chastity and purity of their own wives and daughters, can
do any such thing, and, therefore, I do not think it neces-
sary to do any more than invite your attention to what I
have laid before you.

The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up, said : Gen-
tlemen of the jury : There is one point on which I think
every one who has attended to this trial will cordially concur
with the Solicitor-General, who has just addressed you — that
is as to the mischievous character and effect of this prose-
cution. A more ill-advised and more injudicious proceeding
in the way of a prosecution was probably never brought into
a court of justice. Here is a book which has been published
now for more than forty years, which appears never to have
got into general circulation to any practical extent, and
which by this injudicious proceeding has been resucitated
and sent into general circulation to the extent of thousands
of copies. And when the learned Solicitor-General says
that in consequence of the challenge sent forth by the
defendants to the police authorities after the work had been
given up at Bristol, that they v/ere prepared to publish it
and sell it with a view to challenge the question whether it
was a work which might really be circulated, when the
Solicitor-Gereral says that left no alternative to the authori-
ties but to meet that challenge, I must say that I do not
agree with him ; and when he talks of the authorities
I should like to know who are the authorities and what are
the authorities to whom he refers. He did not venture to tell
us that anybody except the policeman who was put into
the box on the part of the prosecution is, in fact, the prosecu-
tor in this case. I should very much like to know who are the
anthorities who are prosecuting, because that has not yet
transpired. The Solicitor-General tells us it may have been
the magistracy. I do not believe it. I do not believe it.
I, however, entirely concur v/ith him that, however ill-advised
may have been this prosecution, here it is. Every man has
a right, even if he is only a detective policeman, to put the
criminal law of the land into motion, if he thinks he has
ground for so doing, so long as the Government of this.

256

country thinks proper to have the administration of justice
defective in that which, from this place I say, is an essen-
tial necessity with a view to its proper administration
(I mean the office of a public prosecutor) — so long as
every individual, however rash, however ill-advised, has
the right to put the criminal law of the land in motion,
if he does so he has the right to ask that the case shall be
treated with due consideration, and shall be disposed of
according to justice and to law. Therefore, we have the case
here, and however much we may deplore the rashness which
set this prosecution going, we must deal with it as though it
had had the sanction of the Crown, which I do not think it
has, although the Solicitor-General appears to conduct it.
It is not a Government prosecution, nor have we any evi-
dence that it is a prosecution set on foot by any authority
which we should be disposed to treat with any great amount
of consideration, but it is a case certainly deserving of your
most serious attention. There is one thing in which I cor-
dially agree with the Solicitor-General, and that is that no
better tribunal can be found in the world to judge of such a
question as this than the average sound sense and enlightened
judgment which is to be found in EngUsh society, and
I quite agree with what has been said on both sides
that the decision in this case, when I have told you what
the indictment is, and what the law is, rests solely and
entirely and exclusively with you. If you are of opinion
that this book in its details, or in its scope, or in its effects,
deserves the character that the SoUcitor-General says has
set its stamp upon it, your verdict ought to be undoubtedly
given for the prosecution. But before you arrive at that
conclusion, you must carefully consider this work, both in
its detail and in its general effect. The indictment charges
the defendants that they unlawfully and wickedly
devising, contriving, and intending, as much as in them lay,
to vitiate and corrupt the morals as well of youth as of
divers other liege subjects of our said lady the Queen, and
to incite and encourage the said liege subjects to indecent,
obscene, unnatural, and immoral practices, and bring them
to a state of wickedness, lewdness, and debauchery, there-
fore, to wit, on the 24th day of March, a.d. 1877, in the
City of London and within the jurisdiction of the Central
Criminal Court, unlawfully, wickedly, knowingly, wilfully,
and designedly did print, publish, sell, and utter a certain
indecent, lewd, filthy, and obscene libel, to wit, a

257

certain indecent, lewd, filthy, bawdy, and obscene
book, called * Fruits of Philosophy,' thereby con-
taminating, vitiating, and corrupting the morals." That
is the charge, and here, again, I agree with the Soli-
citor-General that if the effect of the work is as the words
here designate it, and the defendants did, as they openly
avow, intentionally publish the work, and that be its cha-
racter, they must abide by the result, however strange and
anomalous that may seem ; while it is admitted that they
were acting under the belief that they were doing good in
what they did, nevertheless they are to be held responsible
to the extent of its being found against them that they pub-
lished this work, which tends to deprave the morals of
society. Now, gentlemen, as I have already said, you are
the judges in this matter, and you have had this book before
you, and you have had it in all its details and in its general
effects commented on by both sides, and by this time you
must be pretty familiar with it. I am bound to tell you
what the law says about it. Although it is a law of modern
times, and unknown, I believe, to the old common law of
England, and forming a portion of that part of our law which
is called judge-made law,'' there it is — it is the law of the
land, and we must all abide by it. It is not for the defen-
dants to say that the law is a bad law, and inconsistent with
that perfect freedom of discussion which is essential to the
welfare of mankind. We are a law-abiding people, and no
man has a right to set himself above the law and to defy
the law. If the law is a bad law, an immoral law,
or an impolitic law, and you have it in your power
in any way to change it, to abrogate or reverse it,
your duty, as a good citizen, would be to do so.
But while the law exists it is your first and bounden duty as
citizens to obey it ; therefore, we must not listen to argu-
ments upon moral obligations arising out of any motive or
out of any desire to benefit humanity, or to do good to
your species. You must not say, I will set the law at defiance,
or, I will do what the law forbids. No matter what the motives
of the defendants may have been, if the work is what the
Solicitor-General for the prosecution alleges it, although we
may think we see — and probably we shall be right in saying
so — here, in this instance, are two enthusiasts, who have
been actuated by the desire to do good in a particular
department of society, nevertheless, if in this desire to do
good they have done wrong, they must abide by the result,

258

Now, gentlemen, the la-;/ this — that whatever outrages
public decency and actiicn 'iy tends to corrupt the public
morals is an offence. It -16 not necessary to load it with
all the opprobrious epithets ^/hich have been applied to this
work. It is enough to ^:ay that the work is a corrupt
publication, that it tends :o corrupt the morals of the
population, and that it is, therefore, an offence against
morality. But we must be careful in applying this
general principle of 'ki?r 7/hen we come to its practical
apphcation, so as no: to abridge the full and free right of
public discussion, and the eMpression of public and private
Qpinion on matters which are interesting to all, and mate-
rially affect the welfare of society. There is a difficulty in a
case of this kind in determining whether that which is
put forv/ard in the shape of a publication is matter
tending to vitiate and corrupt public morals, or vrhether
it is matter which it is of interest to mankind to have
discussed, and which cai 's for an expression of opinion
upon it. Now, the Solicit or- General, in opening this case
— as he did also in reply.ng to the case for the defence —
. has asserted not only that this publication is filthy and ob-
scene, but also that the purpose of it — and all the details
are intended to lead up to that purpose — is inconsistent
with public morality, so that we have to divide the con-
sideration of the subject into tv/o parts. In the first place,
are there in this publication details inconsistent with
decency — details calculated to enkindle the passions and
desires of lust, and excite libidinous thoughts in the minds
of the readers ? Even if that should not be the case, the
second point is whether the purpose advocated in the work,
and the purpose and effect of the details so elaborately
given, is a purpose inconsistent with the morals of society ?
If sOy the vv^ork is an illegal work, and the offence with which
tlie defendants are charged is made out. If, on
the other hand, thai :s not established, the defendants
are entitled to a verdict of acquittal. It must not be
forgotten that it is for the prosecution to prove its case, and
it lies on them to make out that the defendants are guilty.
Nov/, gentlem.en, let us see what the work purports to be,
and let us inquire whether it is published in the v/ay of
information or whether it is at all calculated to corrupt the
mind of any one. I divide that into two parts. Is this
' publication in its scope and object a thing calculated to
deprave and debase the morals of those who read it ? That

259

is one part. Independently of that, are the details given,
irrespective of the ultimate purpose of the work, calculated
to inflame the passions and corrupt the morals of those
readers ? These are two separate and distinct things. Before
I call your attention any further to the details, let me allude
for a few moments to what, as it appears to me, is the scope
and purpose of the work. The author. Dr. Knowlton, pro-
fesses to deal with the subject of population. Now,acentury
ago a great and important question of political economy was
brought to the attention of the scientific and thinking world
by a man whose name everybody is acquainted with, namely,
Malthus. He started for the first time a theory which
astonished the world, though it is now accepted as an irre-
fragable truth, and has since been adopted by economist
after economist. It is, that population has a strong and
marked tendency to increase faster than the means of sub-
sistence afforded by the earth, or that the skill and industry
of man can produce for the support of life. The consequence
is that the population of a country necessarily includes a
vast number of persons upon whom poverty presses with a
heavy and sad hand. It is true that the effects of over-popu-
lation are checked to a certain extent by those powerful
agencies which have been at work since the beginning of the
world. Great pestilences, famines, and wars, have constantly
swept away thousands from the face of the earth, who other-
wise must have contributed to swell the numbers of mankind.
The effect, however, of this tendency to increase faster than
the means of subsistence, leads to still more serious evils
amongst the poorer classes of society. It necessarily lowers
the price of labour by reason of the supply exceeding the
demand. It increases the dearth of provisions by making
the demand greater than the supply, and produces direful
consequences to a large class of persons who labour under
the evils, physical and moral, of poverty. You find it, as
described by a witness called yesterday, in the over-crowding
of our cities and country villages, and the necessarily de-
morahsing effects resulting from that over-crowding. You
have heard of the way in which women — I mean child-bear-
ing women — are destroyed by being obliged to submit to
the necessities of their position before they are fully
restored from the effects of child-birth, and the effects
thus produced upon the children by disease and
early death. That these are evils — evils which, if they could
he prevented, it would be the first business of human charity

R 2

26o

to prevent — there cannot be any doubt. That the evils of
over-population are real, and not imaginary, no one
acquainted with the state of society in the present day can
possibly deny. Malthus suggested, years ago, and his sug-
gestion has been supported by economists since his time^
that the only possible way of keeping down population was
by retarding marriage to as late a period as possible, the
argument being that the few^er the marriages the fewer
would be the people. But another class of theorists say
that that remedy is bad, and possibly worse than the disease,
because, although you might delay marriage, you cannot
restrain those instincts which are implanted in human
nature, and people will have the gratification and satisfac-
tion of passions powerfully implanted, if not in one way, in
some other w^ay. So you have the evils of prostitution sub-
stituted for the evils of over-population. Now, what says
Dr. Knowlton ? There being this choice of evils — there
being this unquestioned evil of over-population which exists
in a great part of the civilised world — is the remedy pro-
posed by Malthus so doubtful that probably it Avould lead to
greater evils than the one which it is intended to remedy ?
Dr. Knowlton suggests — and here we come to the critical
point of this inquiry — he suggests that, instead of marriage
being postponed, it shall be hastened. He suggests that
marriage shall take place in the hey-day of life, when the pas-
sions are at their highest, and that the evils of over-popula-
tion shall be remedied by persons, after they have married,
having recourse to artificial means to prevent the procreation
of a numerous offspring, and the consequent evils, espe-
cially to the poorer classes, which the production of a
too numerous offspring is certain to bring about. Now,
gentlemen, that is the scope of the book. With a view to
make those to whom these remedies are suggested under-
stand, appreciate, and be capable of applying them, he
enters into details as to the physiological circumstances
connected with the procreation of the species. The Soli-
citor-General says — and that was the first proposition with
which he started — that the whole of this is a delusion and a
sham. When Knowlton says that he wishes that marrias^e
should take place as early as possible — marriage being the
most sacred and holy of all human relations — he means
nothing of the kind, but means and suggests, in the sacred
name of marriage, illicit intercourse between the sexes, or a
kind of prostitution. Now, gentlemen, whatever may be

26l

your opinion about the propositions contained ni this work,
when you come to weigli carefully the views of this un-
doubted physician and would-be philosopher, I think you
will agree with me that to say that he meant to depreciate
marriage for the sake of prostitution, and that all he says
about marriage is only a disguise, and intended to impress
upon the mind sentiments of an entirely different character
for the gratification of passion, otherwise tiian by marriage,
is a most unjust accusation. (Applause in court.) I must
say, that I believe that every word he says about marriage
being a desirable institution, and every word he says with
reference to the enjoyments and happiness it engenders, is
said as honestly and truly as anything probably ever uttered
by any man. I can only believe that when the Solicitor-
General made that statement he had not half studied the
book. Bn.t I pass that by. I come to the plain issue
before you. Knowlton goes into physiological details
connected with the functions of the generation and pro-
creation of children. The principles of this pamphlet, with
its details, are to be found in greater abundance and
distinctness in numerous works to which your attention has
been directed, and, having these details before you, you
must judge for yourselves whether there is anything in them
which is calculated to excite the passions of man and debase
the public morals. If so, every medical work is open to the
same imputation. We know there are books which have,
for their purpose, the exciting of libidinous thoughts, and
are intended to give to persons who take pleasure in that
sort of thing the impure gratification which the contempla-
tion of such thoughts is calculated to give. If you think
this book is of that character, and is therefore calculated to
produce in the mind of any man thoughts of this descrip-
tion, then the work would be condemnable upon that
point. Though the intention is not unduly to convey
this knowledge, and gratify prurient and libidinous
thoughts, still if its effect is to excite and create thoughts
of so demoralising a character to the mind of the
reader, the work is open to the condemnation asked
for at your hands. I quite agree that a work of this
kind sold at the corners of the streets — or capable of being
sold at the corners of the streets and at bookstalls to every-
one who has sixpence to spare — may be purchased by per-
sons who think there is something in it that will gratify their
prurient desires. But it may be contended — and it is per-

262

fectly true — that details of this kind are absolutely neces-
sary in a medical or physiological work treating of the human
organs, and which professes to give useful information to
every person able to pay even sixpence. At the same time^
you must consider whether the details given are calculated
to do more than give you that fair information which every
human being may be assumed to fairly desire to possess — -
a knowledge of his own organisation. But if you think that
it has a tendency to excite unholy desires ; if you think it
deserves the character which the Solicitor-General has given
to it, and that it outrages decency and tends to corrupt
public morals, you are bound by your verdict to condemn
the work. Now, let us suppose that you should be of
opinion that there is nothing inconsistent with physiological
details that may properly be given. I will not trouble
you by reading extracts, because you have the book before
you. Suppose you are of opinion that there is nothing in
those details which should not be given. But here allow
me to make one remark. We are not dealing with this
work as a matter of taste or feeling. We may think it would
be better that such details were not given, and so
become liable to be placed in the hands of boys and
girls. That is quite another matter. You must be satisfied
that these details, even if not intended for that purpose,
have the effect of corrupting the mind before. you condemn
the book. That is the charge or proposition which must be
made out in order to bring the book within the reach of
the law. Suppose now you are satisfied that the Solicitor-
General was wrong when he said that, while Knov/lton ad-
vocates marriage he advocates something else. Suppose
you set aside that as groundless, and believe that the phy-
siological details as to conception and procreation have not
in themselves any corrupting tendency, you then cannot
find the defendants guilty upon that ground. Now, we
come to what, as it appears to me, is the very essence
of this inquiry. We come to that part of the case on which
your verdict must hinge. The argument with respect to
marriage being hastened, instead of, according to the Mal-
thusian theory, being delayed, having been disposed of by
the author, we come to the point as to how the existence of
over-population is to be dealt with, and the misery, disease,
and immorality which it necessarily engenders in those
classes upon whom over-population presses, and to whom it
brings the most serious and fatal of diseases and con-

263

sequences. How are those consequences to be averted
according to this book ? It is by means to be taken, not
to prevent intercourse between married people, but to pre-
sent the consequences of that intercourse which naturally
before place between the sexes in the married state, and
therefore means are suggested which, having read the book,
you are familiar with. The learned counsel for the prose-
cution, says, in emphatic terms, that these means are con-
trary to the law of God and the law of man ; in other words,
to prevent the natural fruits of matrimonial union is con-
trary to the law of God and man, and contrary to the sound
morals which ought to prevail. The question is whether
that is the view which you will take of the proposition con-
tained in this book. Over-population, says Knowlton, is
productive of abundant misery. Hcv/ can we prevent the
over-procreation of the species ? If you check marriage,
prostitution takes its place ; and, therefore, the only pos-
sible way in which you can grapple with it is to allow
legitimate intercourse between man and woman after
marriage, but to prevent procreation by applying artificial
checks after conjugal and connubial intercourse.
Says the Solicitor-General, that is obscene, no matter in
what form that is presented. There are three or four forms
in which the preventive checks are proposed. One is
specially recommended as efficacious, but it is open to the
same objection as the others — that, it is said, it tends to
destroy the morality of conjugal life. Now, there is one of
these means which occurs to m.e in the first instance.
Knowlton points out as a physiological fact estabhshed
by long experience and consistent with the present
scientific theory on the subject of procreation, that if
conjugal intercourse is avoided at a particular period,
and within a certain time of menstruation, conception
cannot take place, in fact it becomes physically,
or all but physically, impossible. Now, suppose a
married man and woman, with limited means, and having
as many children as they can maintain, were to come to
the resolution to avoid conjugal intercourse at the particular
period at which that conjugal intercourse mainly produces
its natural result, would that be an immoral course of
proceeding? If it would be an immoral course of
proceeding, the man who recommends an immoral course
of proceeding in an open publication is guilty of an
offence against the law. Another artificial check suggested

264

[Knowlton, p. 39]. These are very unpleasant details
in a public court, but we must deal with them. Is that
inconsistent with morality? There may be a certain degree of
indelicacy in such a suggestion, but the question for your de-
cision— and for your decision only — is whether it could have
the effect of corrupting the morals of those persons who resort
to the practice. A man and woman may say, " We have
more children than we can supply with the common
necessaries of life ; what are we to do ? Let us have
recourse to this contrivance." Then, gentlemen, you
should consider whether that particular course of proceed-
ing is inconsistent with morality, whether it would have a
tendency to degrade and deprave the man or woman. The
Solicitor-General, while doubtless admitting the evils and
mischiefs of excessive population, argues that the checks
proposed are demoralizing in their effects, and that it is
better to bear the ills we have than have recourse to
remedies having such demoralizing results. These are
questions for you, twelve thinking men, probably hus-
bands and fathers of families, to consider and deter-
mine. That the defendants honestly believe that the
•evils that this work would remedy, arising from over-popula-
tion and poverty, are so great that these checks may be
resorted to as a remedy for the evils, and as bettering the
condition of humanity, although there might be things to be
.avoided, if it were possible to avoid them, and yet remedy
the evils which they are to prevent — that such is the honest
opinion of the defendants, we, who have read the book, and
who have heard what they have said, must do them the
justice of believing. I agree with the Solicitor-General if,
with a view to what is admitted to be a great good, they
propose something to the world, and circulate it especially
among the poorer classes, if they propose something in-
consistent with public morals, and tending to destroy the
domestic purity of women, that it is not because they do not see
the evils of the latter, the while they see the evils of the former,
that they must escape ; if so, they must abide the conse-
quences of their actions, whatever may have been their
motive. They say we are entitled to submit to the considera-
tion of the thinking portion of mankind the remedies which
we propose for these evils. We have come forward to
challenge the inquiry whether this is a book which we are
entitled to publish. They do it fairly, I must say, and
in a very straightforward manner they come to demand the

265

judgment of the proper tribunal. You must decide that
with a due regard and reference to the law, and with an
honest and determined desire to maintain the morals of
mankind. But, on the other hand, you must carefully con-
sider what is due to public discussion, and with an anxious
desire not, from any prejudiced view of this subject, to stifle
what may be a subject of legitimate inquiry. But there is
another view of this subject, that Knowlton intended to
reconcile with marriage the prevention of over-population.
Upon the perusal of this work, I cannot bring myself to
doubt that he honestly believed that the remedies he pro-
posed were less evils than even celibacy or over-population
on the one hand, or the prevention of marriage on the other
hand, in that honesty of intention I entirely concur. But
whether in his desire to reconcile marriage with a check on
over-population, he did not overlook one very important con-
sideration connected with that part of society which should
abuse it, is another and a very serious consideration.
What the Solicitor-General has here put before you
is, I think, very well deserving of your consideration.
The Solicitor-General assumes, for the purposes of argument,
that Knowlton is sincere in assuming that he desires to see
marriage keeping its proper place in the institutions of man-
kind, that he desires, by early marriages, to prevent prostitu-
tion and the evils of celibacy, and that, even as regards
married people, that which he recommends might be held
to be consistent with a proper state of morals ; yet some
things that he recommends in marriage may also be made
available by those who are not married, and every young
man and young woman who may have a tendency to gratify
their sexual instincts and desires without entering into mat-
rimony have here a means suggested to them whereby they
may gratify their instincts and desires without running the
risk of having children. Say the defendants, in answer to
that very obvious argument : " We have nothing to do with
any abuse of what we recommend ; we recommend it only
to those who are married, with whom sexual intercourse is
a perfectly rightful thing. We don't recommend it to those
in whose case sexual intercourse is not a rightful thing,
and if they choose to do that which is wrong
and, in order to cover their wrongdoings and
prevent evil result, they choose to have recourse to
knowledge which is not intended for them we are not to
blame, and we ought not to be prevented from recommend-

266

ing to the married that which could be useful to them
because other persons abuse that which we recommend."
Well, that is true to a certain extent, but, on the other hand,
if that which is offered to the married, though in their case —
and I say this only hypothetically — it might not be produc-
tive of immoral effects, yet if you extend it over the whole
of society it may subvert the morals of a portion of society,
and it becomes the question whether the thmg proposed is
not a thing which from its nature will corrupt the morals of
the young. Therefore, it is open to the objection that brings
it within the law. It is very true, it may be said in answer
— an answer not altogether unworthy of consideration — that
the reason why the law makes the publication of works of
an improper description illegal is that their tendency is to
corrupt the public morals ; but in the case you suppose the
persons are already corrupt, and are prepared to give way to
passion and set aside the laws of virtue ; therefore, their
minds are already corrupt, and will not be corrupted by the
remedies we recommend; they are already willing to go
wrong, but for the dangers which they foresee from sexual
intercourse. Well, that is very true. That argument may
be presented in answer to the one founded upon the possible
publication of this work to unmarried persons. It is very
true that that answer may be given, but there is a reply to it.
If the instincts of unmarried persons are restrained simply
by the fear of the consequences of illicit intercourse, namely,
the begetting of children, by suggesting these preventive
checks you remove a salutary restraint. Therefore, it may
be argued, not without foundation, that if the use of these
preventive checks were consistent with morality among the
married, you are offering to the unmarried a strong tempta-
tion by means of the removal of those restraints which keep
many in the right course. These are the various forms in
which this question may be put. I can only tell you what
the general course of the law is. I can only repeat that if
you are of opinion that this work of Knowlton's, although
well intended, and although the publication of it by the
defendants may be intended for the benefit of mankind, if
you think they have taken an erroneous view as to the effect
of the work, and that its entire scope is subversive of the
morals of society, if that is your opinion, it is then your
bounden duty to find the defendants liable. But whilst that
is the case, it is for the prosecution to make out the charge
they have undertaken to establish. If you think they have

267

failed — if you think these are matters which may fairly be
discussed — that the proper answer to them is by refuting
them by argument and not by prosecution, the defendants
are entitled to your verdict. Or if you have any doubt as
to the effect of this work you are bound to bring them in
not guilty. I would only say in conclusion, that whatever
outrages decency, whatever tends to corrupt the morals of
society, and especially the morals and purity of women —
whatever tends to have that result is, when published, an
offence against the law. But that offence like every other
must be made out. If you think it is made out, if there is
a conviction in your minds that though they have acted from
a desire to do good, yet in your opinion they have done
wrong, they have then brought themselves within the defini-
tion of the statute.

The jury at a quarter to one asked for leave to retire to
consider their verdict.

His Lordship directed that they should do so.

They returned into court at twenty minutes past two,
having been absent an hour and thirty-five minutes.

The Lord Chief Justice, to the clerk of the court : You
had better call over the names.

The Clerk : My Lord, there are twelve gentlemen in the
box.

The Lord Chief Justice : Very v/ell.
The Clerk : Gentlemen, have you agreed upon your
verdict ?

The Foreman of the jury : We have.

The Clerk : Do you find the defendants guilty or not
guilty of this charge ?

The Foreman : We are unanimously of opinion that the
book in question is calculated to deprave public morals, but
at the same time we entirely exonerate the defendants from
any corrupt motives in publishing it.

The Lord Chief Justice : I am afraid, gentlemen I nmst
direct you, on that finding, to return a verdict of guilty under
this indictment against the defendants. As I have already
explained to you the motive and intendon of the defendants
cannot, in this case, be taken into account at all. If you find
that the book is calculated to corrupt and deprave public
morals, you must, although you did not think they had a
motive to corrupt public morality, yet as their intention to
publish was deliberate, you must find that as it is calculated
to do so they had a corrupt motive in publishing it. Of

268

course your exoneration of them will be taken into account
at the proper time, but 1 am afraid you must find a verdict
for the Crown.

The foreman bowed, and turned to his fellow jurymen,
some of whom also in that way signified their acquiescence
in his lordship's ruling, w niie the majority neither assented
nor dissented.

The Clerk : Gentlemen, you all say that the defendants
are guilty upon this indictnient ?

The foreman again bowed, bat did not speak, and a
verdict of guilty was entered upon the records of the court.

The Lord Chief Justice (addressing detendants) : Under
these circumstances I will not pronounce sentence against
you at present, but I shall order you to come up this day
week, when the Court will be sitting in banco ; you will then
be heard, as you have given notice upon a point as to
the legality of the indictment, you will be heard in exception
to it upon any legal grounds you may urge on that day, and
if that objection should be over-ruled, the circumstances
under which the verdict has been pronounced against you
will be taken into consideration, and you can urge anything
you desire in mitigation. Until this day week then.

His lordship then rose.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, do I understand that till this
day week we are at liberty to go on the same recognisances
as before ?

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh yes, certainly.

The Court then rose, and a large crowd which had gathered
outside to learn the result, heartily cheered the defendants
as they passed to their carriage.

269

FIFTH DAY.

SITTINGS IN BANCO,

June 2 8th.
^

Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant attended the Court of
Queen's Bench this morning to receive judgment on a ver-
dict which was found by a special jury on Thursday last.
The judges were Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and Mr.
Justice Mellor.

When the Court met the Lord Chief Justice said : Mr.
Solicitor-General, do you move ?

The Solicitor-General bowed in assent.

After several unopposed motions had been made and
disposed of,

The Solicitor-General rose, and said : I move the Court
for judgment in the case of the Queen against Bradlaugh
and another. I understand there is some difficulty about
the postea.

The Lord Chief Justice : Where is the postea ? It
ought to have been made out and presented to the Court

The Solicitor-General : My lord, there was some diffi-
culty, as I understand, in regard to that matter, the Crown
Office being unable to get it ready in time for the meeting
of the Court.

The Master : The Crown Office has nothing to do with
it ; it is the duty of the Associate.

The Lord Chief Justice : Yes ; of course it is the duty
of the solicitor for the prosecution to instruct the Associate
to prepare the postea.

The Solicitor-General : I do not understand, my lord,
that that is the practice of the Court. I have always under-
stood that it was the duty of the Associate and not of the
prosecution to produce the postea.

2/0

The Lord Chief Justice : It is clearly the Solicitor's
duty. I don't know how long it may be before you get it,
and if you do not get it now it will be very inconvenient, as,
after to-day, we do not sit in banco.

The Solicitor-General : I have not got the postea in
court, but I understand it is being prepared.

The Lord Chief Justice : I don't understand why it has
not been prepared.

•The Solicitor-General : My lord, we have taken steps
to get it prepared, and I believe that at this moment it is
being prepared.

The Lord Chief Justice : Really, I must say that it is
very careless on the part of the prosecution not to have had
the postea in court.

The Solicitor-General : It is not the prosecutor's duty
at all, it is the business of the Associate.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is the business of the Asso-
ciate to make it up after it has been applied for.

The Solicitor-General : I don't know when it was
applied for.

The Lord Chief Justice : Only this morning. It
appears to me that that places us in a difficulty.

The Solicitor-General : My lord, I have never felt
that difficulty, nor have I understood it to be the practice
of the Court to demand it.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is not so. It is the
commonest thing in the world to have the postea produced.

The Solicitor-General : According to the ordinary
practices, both here and elsewhere, it is not usual to apply
to have the postea made out. I am told the practice is
equally the same on the Crown side.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is not so in criminal cases.

Mr. Justice Mellor : It is not so when there is an ex-
change to this Court.

The Solicitor-General : When a motion of this kind is
made, after a removal by certm-ari^ it takes the usual course
of a civil trial ; and under these circumstances I should
liave understood that the postea would have been made up
by the proper officers of the court.

Mr. Justice Mellor : It is not so made up.

The Solicitor-General : I would not contradict those
who say so, but if anybody says that, I must confess it is an
inconvenient practice. AVhen once a case is moved by
certiorari to this court, it becomes a civil trial, and I am

271

told by a solicitor of 40 years' experience that, in that case,
the postea is made up by the Associate, as in a civil process,
whether it is applied for or not.

The Lord Chief Justice : All the materials in a case
of this kind should have been here, and, if they are not
here, it is your duty to have applied for them.

The Solicitor-General : I have always understood that
the Associate must send the postea.

Mr. Justice Mellor : When was the application made in
this motion ?

The Solicitor-General : It was made, at any rate, in
time, but I do not know when.

The Lord Chief Justice : It ought to be ready in
court.

The Solicitor-General : I think it is assumed to be
ready.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is not assumed at all, Mr.
vSolicitor-General. The solicitors in this case should have
asked the Master what was to be done.

The Solicitor-General : If that were so, there ought
to have been no mistake about the thing, as a matter of
course. According to practice, the Associate should have
made up the record, and it is not at all usual for the prose-
cution to give notice for the requirement of such a record.
The rule varies where there is no time fixed ; but in this
case it was perfectly well known when it would come on.

The Lord Chief Justice : The Associate cannot be
supposed to make up the postea until he gets notice.

The Solicitor-General : My lord, that is not the prac-
tice, I am told.

The Lord Chief Justice : Do the defendants intend to
move for a new trial or not ?

The Solicitor-General : I don't know whether they do
or do not

Mr. Bradlaugh : Yes ; certainly we do. My lord, I
have three propositions to submit to you. The first one is a
motion to quash the indictment; the second is a motion for
arresting judgment on the same ground ; and the third is a
motion for a ncv/ trial, which my co-defendant will make.
I do not know, my lord, in what order these propositions
should be taken, whether the first motion should be to
quash the indictment, or whether I should make to your
lordship a motion for arrest of judgment.

The Lord Chief Justicp: : I was not aware, at the time.

what course the trial would take, or wliat would be the
issue which would eventually go to the jury — whether their
attention was to be directed to particular parts of the work
upon w^hich the prosecution relied, or whether these points
were set out in the indictment.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I did not state my objection fully to
your lordship ; but I asked if I should state the grounds on
which I moved, and your lordship said No."

The Lord Chief Justice : I beg your pardon, you did
state the grounds. You objected that those parts were not
set out. If the Solicitor-General had relied upon any
particular parts of the work, I should have thought it worth-
notice, and have explained it to the jury. I should have
asked them whether that was well founded. But the argu-
ment of the Solicitor-General was not that — it was whether
the whole w^ork was not an offence against the law.

Mr. Bradlaugh : With all respect to your lordship,
I understood your lordship to put it that I was not then
moving at the time I should have moved ; and I did not
press upon your lordship the grounds upon which, if I had
been in time, I should have moved. I stated to you simply
that I moved to quash the indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice : I declined to quash the
indictment.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I thought it was a refusal to hear the
motion. If I had understood that you refused to quash
the indictment, I should not have suggested to your lord-
ship the grounds on which I felt entitled to move at nisi
piiiLS ] but, on the contrary, I thought that your lordship
said you could not hear the motion at all, and I understood
your lordship to say that you would reserve the point to me.

The Lord Chief Justice : So I have ; but if you move
for a new trial you must state the grounds for saying that
the indictment is illegal, and you have a perfect right to
do so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Quite so, my lord. Then I move to
quash the indictment, or to arrest judgment on the ground
that the indictment is for an obscene libel, and that the
words supposed to be criminal in that libel ought to have
been expressly specified in the indictment, and they are not
specified in the indictment. In Archbold's Criminal
Practice," page 58 (i8th edition), he says that where words
are the gist of the offence, they must be set forth with par-
ticularity in the indictment."

273

Mr. Justice Mellor : That is, in a case of libel, it might
be so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Very well, my lord. And in the case
of the Queen against Sacheverell, which is reported in the
15th Howell, page 466, the Lord Chancellor put this ques-
tion to the judges : Whether by the law of England and the
constant practice in the courts in all prosecutions by in-
dictment, or information for crimes or misdemeanours,
either by writing or by speaking, the particular words
supposed to be criminal must not be expressly specified in
such indictment or information ? " Baron Lovell replied :
^' I have always taken it to be so, and by constant experi-
ence we have practised it so, that all words or writings which
are supposed to be criminal ought to be expressly mentioned
in the information or indictment."

The Lord Chief Justice : Yes, I understand that to be

so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Mr. Justice Dormer said, " I am of
opinion that by the laws of England and constant practice
in all prosecutions by indictment or information for crimes
or misdemeanours in speaking or writing, the particular
words supposed to be criminal ought to be specified in such
indictment, or information in the Courts of Westminster."
Baron Bury said, " I am of the same opinion with my
brothers." Mr. Justice Tracy said, I am of the same
opinion." Mr. Justice Gould expresses precisely the
same opinion, but he states it with a little more particu-
larity. He says, " It is our practice in the Court of King's
Bench, and we specify the words in the indictment, or it is
cause of demurrer." Mr. Justice Blencove and Mr.
Justice Powys express the same opinion.

The Lord Chief Justice : Well, we take it to be so from
all.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, the whole of the judges,
thirteen in all, delivered the same opinion, except that some
put it more elaborately than others. There is only one case
which I have been able to find which in any way goes
against us, and that is the case of the King v. Christopher
Layer for high treason, and which you will find reported in
the sixteenth volume of Howell, page 317; but in the case
of the King v. Goldstein, which is reported in the third
Broderick and Bingham, page 210, in a judgment referring
to another matter, it was then declared that the words in the
original libel must be set out. The same thing was put in

274

the case of Zenobia v. Axtell, which is reported in vol. six of
the Term Reports, page 162 ; and I submit to your lordship
that the setting out of the words in the indictment has been
the constant practice in the courts. Folkard, on The Law
of Slander and Libel," says that the libellous matter must be
set out in the indictment, and that care should be taken to
express it correctly. On page 773, he gives the form
for publishing and selling an obscene libel and there directs
the passage to be set out. In Mr. Prentice's recent edition
of Russell on Crimes, page 219, he says, *^The libellous
matter must be set out in the indictment, and the libel
proved must appear^ to correspond with the statement of
it in the indictment." And on page 252, he gives another
illustration of the same contention. Archbold, in his book,
on pleading in criminal cases, on page 808, says pretty
nearly the same. He says distinctly, " that the libel itself
must be produced in evidence, and must correspond in
substance with the indictment." On page 803, he gives the
form of an indictment, and in that form he specifies that the
words to be relied upon ought to be set out. On page 806,
he says that the indictment must contain the libellous passages,
and that these must be set out correctly, and on page 806,
he says that besides setting out the words there must be
averments to support the indictment on those libellous
passages. What I would submit to you, my lords, is this —
that the necessity for that procedure becomes very clear.
Broom, in his Commentaries," says (vol. 4, page 408)
that the indictment must have precise and sufficient certainty
in order that the defendant may know what it is that he is
called upon to answer. Our difficulty, my lord, is this, that
it does not appear from the indictment under which we are
charged, what we are precisely called upon to answer.

The Lord Chief Justice : The whole book is complained
of, and you are called upon to answer that complaint.

Mr. Brad LAUGH : Quite so, my lord ; but we did not
know when this prosecution commenced whether we had to
answer for the argument of the whole or for the language of
a part.

The Lord Chief Justice : Suppose that they had set
out the whole of the book.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then, my lord, I should have had
nothing to say.

The Lord Chief Justice : But if that had been so, you
would still have been in the same difficulty. It is a book

275

and you must assume that that means the whole of the
book.

Mr. Bradlaugh : No, my lord, because the difficulty here
is that I did not know, at the commencement of these pro-
ceedings, and I do not know now after having been tried,
and having listened to the address of the learned Solicitor-
General, whether the point which makes this book criminal
is the advocacy of particular checks to over-population, or
whether it consists in the alleged obscenity of some language
in which those particular checks are advocated.

The Lord Chief Justice : Just so ; that is a perfectly
valid argument.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, supposing the advocacy to
have been obscene in some points, or the language used to
have been obscene, that would have been an issue definite
and clear ; but, even then, I should argue that the book
as a whole, or the parts specified, ought to have been set out
in the indictment at length.

The Lord Chief Justice : Suppose it to be so, then
you have a twofold objection. First, that the book is not
obscene in its language, and, secondly, that if it is obscene
at all, the thing that makes it so is the advocacy of prac-
tices that are obscene. In the argument the whole book, it
is said, is open to the charge of obscenity.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then, my lord, I say that if that is the
offence, it should appear on the face of the indictment I
have to answer.

The Lord Chief Justice : No doubt ; so it is if the
whole book is charged, and, if the whole ought to be set
out.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I submit, my lord, that the setting out
of the title of the book is not setting out the obscene words
which it is said constitute our offence, and which we have
to answer here. I submit, my lord, that the whole of the
cases, so far as I have from reports been able to gather
them, either put the libel on the ground of obscenity of
parts, or of the obscenity of whole books. My lord, in the
case of the King against Curll, reported in the 17th of
Howell, which is the first case of this character which was
ever tried and decided, the libellous passages are set out at
length on the face of the indictment. There was one other
case prior to Curll which was partially tried, but for some
reason or other it dropped through. The first case, how-
ever, of an obscene libel which was ever punished by the

s 2

276

Court was the case of Curll, and there, as I have said, the
libellous parts of the book were set out. And, my lord, in
almost every case that I can find since reported in the
books, the parts of the books which have been considered
libellous have been set out. The difficulty we are in, my
lord, is this : that, as the indictment stands, we do not know
whether our offence is for publishing obscene words or for
propounding a theory which the jury now find to be within
the penalty of the common law. There have been, un-
doubtedly, cases in which the statute has very much limited
the practice as to setting out documents ; and I shall put it
to your lordship that where the statutory limitation in some
cases has been made it is ample for the support of my con-
tention that there is a strictness to be observed in all cases
in which the statutory limitation has not been made, and
that this must be so defined in this case. Our difficulty,
my lord, is that a new kind of offence is manufactured here,
and that deals with the second point which I will put before
you, that through the quashing of the indictment, or the
arresting of judgment, you will say whether there is any
offence against the law made out against us. If our offence
be the advocacy of checks to over-population, we say
that that is an offence which has not hitherto been known to
the common laws of England.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is matter for a new
trial, but not for quashing the indictment.

M. Bradlaugh : It is, my lord, matter for a new trial,
and on that point my co-defendant will address you.

The Lord Chief Justice : Do you move for a new trial
or not ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Well, I will.

The Lord Chief Justice : You are here two defendants ;
unless you now ask for a new trial on the ground you have
stated, you cannot afterwards do so.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then, my lord, I ask for a new trial on
the ground that the advocacy of checks to over-population
does not constitute a libel within the common law. I do
think, my lord, from the dictum of my Lord Mansfield in
the case of Woodfall, that it would have been also a fair
matter for the arrest of judgment, but I do not want to put
it improperly to your lordship. I say that the common
law on this matter is the common usage, and this common
usage commenced with the case of the King against Curll,
before which no offence of this character was known to the

277

common law at all. But at the same time, to be perfectly
fair, I admit that it was before that time known to the
ecclesiastical law. Since that period, however, the common
usage for at least loo years has been to discuss checks to
over-population, without any sort of limitation against such
discussion, nor has it been even hinted to be an offence
against the law.

The Lord Chief Justice : The difference is obvious.
The offence clearly is in the suggestion itself There are
checks consistent with morality, and on the other hand
there are checks inconsistent with morality, and the
question here was, whether the proposal contained
in this book for the use of certain checks to over-population
was culpable or not. That was the matter for the jury to
consider and determine, and they have done it.

Mr. Bradlaugh : But they have not determined it ; they
had not even the power to determine it, so as to create a
new offence.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is not a new offence. It
is an offence against law to publish anything inconsistent with
pubHc morality. Before the case of the King v. Curl
there was no decision on this matter, but judges have held
from that time to the present — and we must take it to be
settled law — that you cannot publish a book which is incon-
sistent with public morals.

Mr. Bradlaugh : With all submission, m.y lord, I will
put it to you that Sir James Stephen, in his work of criminal
law, page 505, in a note suggests that " A man may write
with perfect decency of expression, and in complete good
faith maintain doctrines as to marriage, the relation of the
sexes, &c., which would be considered highly immoral by
most people, and yet I think he would commit no crime."
The obscene and the immoral are, in this wide sense, dis-
tinct from each other, and I understood the contention of
the learned Solicitor-General to be that those checks were
immoral because they might imply, and, in fact, did imply
incitements to unchastity amongst unmarried people, and I
submit that even if this were so, you could not convict us
under this indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice : As I understood the learned
Solicitor-General, his contention was that the practice of
such things amongst married people would have a demorali-
sing effect, and would have a yet more demoralising effect
amongst unmarried people by one of the restraints which
now exist being removed.

278

Mr. Bradlaugh : Even then, my lord, I should submit
that this would not be an indictable misdemeanour.

The Lord Chief Justice : What you argue, then, is that
promiscuous intercourse might be lawfully advocated ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not go so far as that, nor does it
arise under the circumstances ; but according to the case of
the King v, Pearson, which is reported in Salkeld, page 382,
— which goes to a length which this pamphlet does not —
even supposing it had contained solicitations to unchastity,
that would not have been an indictable offence.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then, Mr. Bradlaugh, would
you say that it is lawful to advocate promiscuous intercourse,
or do you say that if a man publish a book recom-
mending illicit intercourse that would not be an indictable
offence ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not go so far as that, and the case
of the King e;. Pearson is much stronger than 1 would
be disposed to contend before your lordship. That case is
reported in Salkeld, page 382. I should be personally in-
clined to regard the illustration which your lordship has just
been kind enough to give to me as a fair illustration of a
libellous writing. But here I contend that there is no such
solicitation to unchastity, no violation of public morality,
no outrage of good manners in the mere discussion of such a
subject as this, or in the advocacy of checks to over-popula-
tion, which the jury have found to be depraving and tending
to corrupt public morals ; and I say, my lord, that this ver-
dict has so been found, condemning the advocacy of
checks, against the common usage, for works advocating such
checks have been allowed to be freely printed and openly
circulated for nearly one hundred years, and moreover it
seems to me that such advocacy is peculiarly moral and
reasonable at the present time in this country. I think I
shall be within your lordship's remembrance if I put it to
the Court that so far as the mere language of the pamphlet
is concerned, no fault can be found with it, if it is once con-
ceded to me that the advocacy of checks is anywhere per-
missible, and if there is nothing immoral in the checks them-
selves. If that is so, I need not trouble to contend that the
pamphlet is not in its language immoral, and so far I think I
have said all that is necessary for the sake of meeting the
argument which has been used against me here. I would
ask simply, may the jury construe this book, because it
advocates checks to the population, as coming within a con-

279

travention of those unwritten laws which are specially
against the depraving of public morals ? An advocacy of
a particular class of check being, as I think, permissible,
I am entitled to advocate such checks here, because clearly
there would not be the slightest pretext, if Malthus may ad-
vocate the delay of marriage in order to check the over-
growth of population, for saying that I may not advocate
scientific prudential checks for the same purpose ; and there-
fore it cannot come within the scope of juries to judge and
condemn a book on that ground. If the argument is fair
in the mouth of the Solicitor-General that this case is to be
raised into a precedent for condemning that for which there
has up to this time been no precedent, I think I am entitled
to say that we should look with very great disfavour upon
such a mode of extending the law of the land, and I say
further that, if your lordship allows this verdict of the jury
to be permitted to stand, a new offence will be created — an
offence which has hitherto been completely unknown to our
law. In the case of the King v. Hicklin, we see that which
I am contending for — /.^., that if it is a subject which may
be discussed at all, it cannot be discussed without to a cer-
tain extent producing " authorities and quoting necessary facts.
Now, I contend that the right to discuss checks is permis-
sible, and that there is nothing in the pamphlet which is
not necessary and legitimate to that discussion.

Mr. Justice Mellor : Is it your contention that if the
subject is one which may be discussed at all, it can be dis
cussed without violating the law, if the manner in which you
discuss it is found to have the tendency to corrupt the public
morals ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, I am contending that the
Population Question is one which may be fairly discussed,
and for my right to produce scientific and medical authority
in the discussion of that subject, and for the right to advocate
checks which in themselves are not immoral, and to urge
upon people the adoption of such checks to over-population ;
and even if we should have made a mistake by publishing a
book containing a particular character of check which a jury
declares to have an immoral tendency, unless we have done
that which we have done with a wicked and corrupt motive,
and with a bad intention, there is no pretence for saying that
we have done anything to violate the law. Nor can it be
said that in this book there is anything obscene arising from
an exaggeration, indelicate allusion, or highly-coloured

280

statement of fact, and, therefore, I contend that you ought to
pause before accepting this verdict at the hands of the jury
and thus create a new offence for which your lordships might
lawfully punish us. If there is any word regardmg such an
offence in the statutes of the country, we might be concluded
under this indictment, but if there is no such word we can
only be concluded by the common usage of the country.

The Lord Chief Justice : There you are wrong — the
common law of the country.

Mr. Bradlaugh : An eminent judge, my lord, has put it
that the common law of the country was made by the common
usage of the country.

The Lord Chief Justice : We have got a proposition of
law to deal with here, and not that it is understood that we
are to allow a usage, however common, to override the law.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, I bow, of course, to your lord-
ship's doctrines. Some references were made to the work of
Churchill, who in the case of some diseases thought it was per-
missible to advocate the procuring of premature delivery. Sup-
pose that the jury were asked to construe its illegality, although
there is no violation of good manners, the book of Churchill
would be indictable in the same fashion.

The Lord Chief Justice : We cannot suppose that any
jury would be so foolish as to find that what a medical man
may professionally recommend, in dealing with certain cases
amongst his patients in the exercise of his judgment, in order
to save life, might be construed into an offence against the
law.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I do not think, especially with the evi-
dence of scientists on our side, that the jury should have
come to the conclusion that the check which we advocate
for the hindrance of our population is illegal, and yet they have
so held. There are other grounds upon which I might urge
upon your lordship, that we are entitled to a new trial, with
which I shall not trouble the Court, because they are to be
argued by my co-defendant, and I have no wish to take up
the time of the Court unnecessarily. I have now stated the
different points upon which I rely. It would have been
easy for me to have gone into the matter at greater length.
I would just add that I specially rely upon the first point
which I submitted to your lordship.

Mrs. Besant : I move, my lord, as my co-defendant has
just done, to quash the indictment : in the first place, on the
very ground put by the Lord Chief Justice — viz., that the

28l

whole of the book is supposed to be in the indictment, and,
therefore, that the whole of the book must be taken to be
obscene.

The Lord Chief Justice : No, no. You put it wrongly.
Not the Avhole of the book, but the book as a whole, is
obscene.

Mrs. Besant : The book, as a whole, is to be taken as
obscene. But your lordship drew the distinction between
the checks that are advocated and those parts of the book
which are not obscene, and I put it to your lordships that
the jury in their verdict did not draw that distinction, and that
from the verdict of the jury we have no means of knowing
what parts of the book they condemn.

The Lord Chief Justice : They condemn the whole
of it.

Mrs. Besant : They condemn the whole of it ; and if I
publish another pamphlet in which I should leave out those
parts containing the advocacy of checks to population, that
pa*mphlet would also be condemned, because the advocacy
of the law of population is condemned by that verdict.

Mr. Justice Mellor : No.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, should we not, by that verdict of
the jury, know what it is that constitutes our offence ?

The Lord Chief Justice : Your offence is that of pub-
lishing such a book as has been declared to be obscene.

Mrs. Besant : But, my lord, is it for advocating the
checks to population that we are condemned ?

The Lord Chief Justice : I am bound to say that is the
gist of the inquiry.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, I feel that it is, but the jury did
not say so.

The Lord Chief Justice : I agree that the language of
the book is not open to any particular objection, and if it
had been a medical book it would have been still less
objectionable. The question is, are you entitled to say that
it is a medical work ? When we come to the checks pro-
posed, that was a question for the jury, and it was for them
to say whether the proposals were such as ought to be
practised at all, and without considering whether your
motive was this or that, or that you published the book with
this or that object, whether the book was one consistent
with public morality or not. That was the issue, and it was
determined against you.

Mrs. Besant : When I come to the arguments for a new

'282

trial I shall put it to you that a jury ought not to be per-
mitted, without grave hesitation, to lay down the law on a
question of ethics which has never yet been decided, and
to decide that the practices recommended by Churchill were
right as a recommendation to be made by a medical man,
and that another recommendation which is made by
another medical man — Dr. Knowlton — was wrong.
Besides, there is this difference between the two recom-
mendations, that in the first it is advocated under certain
circumstances to destroy life, and in the second the recom-
mendation is that there should be no necessity for destroying
life at all. I will therefore move that the verdict entered on
behalf of the Crown should really and truly have been
entered for the defendants, on the ground that the verdict
was a special verdict, and was really a verdict of not guilty.
And I move for a new trial on the ground that the form of
words used in the delivery of the verdict was self-contradic-
tory, was utterly against the weight of evidence, and that when
the verdict was brought in, it was recorded as a verdict <of
guilty by misdirection. I feel there might be a difficulty
here in speaking of misdirection, were it not that I am
practically appealing from the decision of the Lord Chief
Justice at Nisi Prius to the Lord Chief Justice in Banco^
and I am therefore sure of a patient hearing. The verdict
as given, was : We are of opinion that the book is
calculated to deprave the public morals, but we entirely
exonerate the defendants from any corrupt motive in
publishing the book ; " and in the indictment, one copy of
which has been handed up to the Bench, we were charged
with a wicked and corrupt motive.

The Lord CnrEF Justice : I did not so regard it.

Mrs. Besant : We are distinctly charged with having a
corrupt intention, and with the object in the publication of
the book of corrupting public morals. We are charged
with having intended to have caused a corruption of public
morals by having published an obscene book. However,
my lord, I contend that the special verdict is a verdict of
not guilty, because a corrupt intention is distinctly charged
in the indictment, and the jury have specifically acquitted
us of the corrupt intention. If the jury had returned a
verdict of guilty, of course I should not have had the
right to make this motion, for a verdict of guilty on the in-
dictment would necessarily imply, or at least it would pre-
suppose, a corrupt intention, and such a corrupt intention

283

must have been found to bring us in guilty. Where the
jury, however, brought in a special verdict and particularly
put the negative on the intention, in that case I contend
that they have negatived a vital part of the indictment, and
cannot bring us in guilty on the whole, the special verdict
having specifically declared that we are not guilty of such a
corrupt intention. I find that Lord Mansfield laid it down
in the case of the King v. Woodfall, which is reported in
Howell's State Trials, vol. 20, column 919, that this must
be so. The verdict there was in the nature of a special
verdict, although the phraseology used in favour of the
accused was not so strong as that on which I am addressing
your lordship. I find Lord Mansfield laid it down there :
" That where an act in itself indifferent, if done with a
particular intent, becomes criminal, there the intent must be
proved and found ; but where the act is in itself unlawful,
as in this case, the proof of justification, or excuse, lies on
the defendants, and in failure thereof, the law implies a
criminal intent." I urge upon your lordships that we have
not failed in proving our intention to be good, because the
jury expressly exonerated us of any criminal intention, and
I quote Lord Mansfield to show that where there is such an
exoneration by the jury the verdict should be one of not
guilty. I will urge further upon your lordships that where
the act charged is indifferent — and in this case it surely is
indifferent, because unless the intention is corrupt the book
is not corrupt — the intent to corrupt must be proved :
that on that ground also the verdict should be one of not
guilty.

The Lord Chief Justice : I beg your pardon. It
is found that the book is calculated to deprave public
morals

Mrs. Besant : Yes, my lord, to deprave public morals.

The Lord Chief Justice : And that being so I shall be
obliged to hold that the publication of the book is contrary
to law.

Mrs. Besant : When the indictment was drawn up there
was no reason to suppose that a physiological treatise was
illegal, and therefore the act was presumably an indifferent
act.

The Lord Chief Justice : The person w^ho publishes a
work of the kind we are dealing with, and which is open to
the objection found against it, must, whatever his intention,
abide by the results of his act.

284

Mrs. Besant : Where the act charged is not known to be
unlawful, the defendant surely has the right to show that in
the act itself there was a good intention ; and I affirm that
in this case we have succeeded in proving that good inten-
tion.

The Lord Chief Justice : There is where you are mis-
taken in your law. You do an unlawful act, and you are
bound to abide by the consequences. You cannot say, " I
disobeyed the law, but I did so with a good intention."
Your business is loyally to obey the law, and not to do
something which violates it.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, I should not have argued as I
am doing if the jury had brought in a verdict of guilty. In
that case I would have loyally acknowledged your lord-
ship's proposition, and felt myself constrained to submit to
the decision ; but where they go out of their way to find a
special verdict, I plead that it is not a verdict of guilty.

The Lord Chief Justice : The answer to that is that on
the part of this indictment which charges you with an un-
lawful offence, the jury have found you guilty. And if the
part had never been written which charges the intention, I
should have held that the indictment was good without it.
It was not necessary to the validity of the verdict that the
superfluous part should be found, and the indictment would
have been good without it. If you publish a book which is
calculated to deprave public morals, that is an offence
against the law; and although, in the unnecessary and
superfluous part of the indictment, there is no judgment
against you, the primary matters not being objected to and
being found guilty here, the verdict is a perfectly valid
one.

Mrs. Besant : Then, my lord, I must urge upon you that
if the indictment is badly drawn

The Lord Chief Justice : It is not badly drawn if some-
thing is put in that might have been left out altogether. If
it is useful enough for the purpose, the useful part is not
corrupted by the useless part.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, I argue that the corrupt inten-
tion is a vital part of the indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh, if that is so, you can
argue it.

Mrs. Besant : I argue that it is so, my lord ; and that
being so, that vital part has been negatived by the jury,
and, therefore, the verdict must fall to the ground. I say

28s

that a good verdict required that the vital part should be
found, and that the part which really is vital is shut out by
the special verdict given ; and I will put it to you on the
authority of Broom, who lays it down on page 41, vol. iv.,
that in an act which is criminal, the act must he such as
affects and prejudices the public ; and, secondly, that the
act must have proceeded from a guilty mind, and must
have been done with criminal intent. And I urge upon
your lordships that throughout the whole course of English
law it has invariably been held to be so. Your lordship
pointed out to the learned Solicitor-General that it would
be a most strange anomaly if a defendant charged with the
intention to vitiate and corrupt pubHc morality was, notwith-
standing being so charged, acquitted of such intent by the
prosecution, and yet found guilty on the indictment. My
lord, there is no such anomaly in English law, as I shall
hope to show you. Right through the authorities I think
your lordships will find that a malicious intent is necessary
to the crime. If you take the case of homicide, the offence,
whether it be murder or manslaughter, lies in the intention ;
and if there was not such intention found or supposed, the
charge could not be sustained. If the charge were one of
murder, the negativing of the bad intention would make that
verdict for murder fall to the ground. The man could be
prosecuted after for manslaughter, I suppose, but not con-
victed of it there and then if the indictment were only one
for murder.

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh, yes, he could.

Mrs. Besant : If there was a count for manslaughter in
the indictment, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : Not necessarily An indict-
ment for murder would include manslaughter, because the
greater includes the less.

Mrs. Besant : Mr. Erskine, arguing in the case of the
King V. John Cuthell, which is reported in Howell, vol. 27,
cols. 661 and 662, puts it there that the indictment charging
the bookseller with publishing a seditious libel must say
that he did so with a malignant intention, and argues that
if the bookseller had no such malignant intention he should
not be brought in guilty. He puts the very point I have
just urged : Let it, for argument's sake, be taken that such
an indictment [for malignantly publishing] may, even as the
law stands, be properly maintained ; but, if this be so, why
should not the indictment, in conformity with the universal

286

rules of pleading, charge such negligence by a distinct
count ? Upon what principle is a man who is guilty of one
crime to be convicted, without a shadow of evidence, or in
the teeth of all evidence, of another crime, greatly more
heinous and totally different?'' That is our own case; we
are brought in by direction of the judge guilty on an indict-
ment which charges us with a crime from which the jury
expressly exonerated us. Erskine might have been pleading
our case as he goes on ; he says : " The Libel Act lies
before me, which expressly and in terms directs that the
trial of a libel shall be conducted like every other trial for
any other crime ; and that the jury shall decide, not upon
the mere fact of printing or publishing, but upon the whole
matter put in issue — the publication of the libel with
the intentions charged by the indictment. This is the rule
by the Libel Act, and you, the jury, as well as the Court,
are bound by it. What, then, does the present indictment
charge ? Does it charge merely that Mr. Cuthell published,
or negligently published, the 'Reply to the Bishop of
Llandaff'? No; it charges, 'that the defendant being a
wicked and seditious person, and malignantly and traitor-
ously intending to secure the invasion of Great Britain by
the French, and to induce the people not to defend the
country, had pubUshed,' &c., setting forth the book. This
is the charge, and you must beheve the whole 'complex pro-
position before the defendant can be legally convicted. No
man can stand up to deny this in the teeth of the Libel
Act, which reduces the question wholly to the intention
which ought to be a foundation for their verdict. Is your
belief of negligence sufficient to condemn Mr. Cuthell upon
this indictment, though you may discredit the criminal
motive which is averred ? The best way of trying that ques-
tion is to find the negligence by a special verdict, and
negative the motives as alleged by the indictment ; do that
and I am satisfied." He asks, in fact, for the very verdict
which was given to us. He goes on to urge that a publisher,
whose whole life disproves the charge, cannot, " by virtue
of an abstract legal proposition," be brought in guilty of
wicked intent. " I positively deny," he says, such a doc-
trine, and I am sure that no judge ever risked his character
with the public by delivering it as law from the Bench.
The judges may have been bound at Nisi Prius, as I admit
they are, to decide according to the current decisions. I
will meet my learned friend, the Attorney-General, in the

287

Lords' House of Parliament on that question, if you, the
jury, will assist me with the fact to raise it by finding as a
special verdict — ' That the book, if you please, was a libel
— that Mr. Cuthell, the defendant, published it ; but that
he published it from negligence and inadvertency, without
the motives charged by the indictment/ " My lords, Lord
Erskine did not even ask for a verdict such as ours, a ver-
dict exonerating us from all fault ; and he goes on : " If
you, gentlemen of the jury, will find such a verdict,
I will consent never to re-enter Westminster Hall again,
if one judge out of the twelve will, upon a writ of
error, pronounce judgment for the Crown." That con-
tention, my lord, has been sustained in many cases.
In the case of the King v. W. Owen, which you will find re-
ported in the 1 8th vol. of Howell, it was argued that you must
find the intention before you can find a verdict of guilty.
Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, says (column 1227):
— " To show you how necessary it is to prove the intention ;
if there is an indictment preferred against a man for an
assault, with an intention to ravish, the intention must be
proved, or else the jury cannot find him guilty. The same
of an assault, with an intention to kill, if the intention is not
proved he must be acquitted. If he kills, and the intention is
not proved — that is, if it is not proved that he killed premedi-
tatedly, and of forethought — it is but manslaughter. There-
fore, in the case before us, if that part of the information is
not proved, that he published maliciously, &c., you must
acquit him." Erskine, in another trial, pointed out that he had
argued against Lord Mansfield on this ground, and that the
legislature, by statute, had maintained his contention. You
will also find that, in the case of the King v. James Lambert,
Perry, and Gray, which is reported in the 22nd vol. of
Howell, column 10 19, that the verdict there given was
" Guilty of publishing, but with no malicious intent." In the
case of the King v. Daniel Isaac Eaton the same kind of
verdict was returned. In Howell, vol. 22, column 780, the
verdict is given : — We find the defendant guilty of publish-
ing, but not with a criminal intention." In that case the
counsel for the defendant said that was a verdict of not
guilty, and that the verdict must be entered so. The Re-
corder said that the verdict must be entered as the jury
gave it, and when he was going to explain to the jury, the
counsel said : — " I contend that the verdict of the jury is
given, and that it is complete and irrevocable ;" and he

288

urged that it was in fact a verdict of acquittal in the form
of a special verdict. The prisoner was let out on bail, and
the question as to the meaning of the verdict was referred
to the twelve judges, and appears never to have been
decided. The man was taken up on another indictment to
the Court of King's Bench, where he was tried for practically
the same offence. There the verdict given was one of
^' Guilty of publishing." The Attorney-General, who after-
wards became Lord Eldon, moved the Court of Queen's
Bench that the verdict should be entered as one of guilty,
but he never took any further action, and the whole trial
dropped to the ground. The verdict given in the case of
Eaton was given against a hostile summing-up, instead of, as
in our case, one which was perfectly fair and impartial right
through. In spite, however, of that the verdict was not ac-
cepted as one of guilty. It stood on the record as a special
verdict, and on its first delivery there was a new trial.

Mr. Justice Mellor : What do you say the precise
terms were which the jury delivered in this case.

Mrs. Besant: *'We are of opinion that the book is cal-
culated to deprave public morality, but we entirely exone-
rate the defendants from any corrupt motive in publishing
the book."

Mr. Justice Mellor : Well, what happened then?

The Lord Chief Justice : I told the jury it being found
that the publication before them was a publication of the
defendants, if^ they were of opinion that the publication was
contrary to public morals, and if its tendency was to deprave,
then the question of intention was not one of which they
might take into account. The want of evil intention might
be considered in the question of punishment. But a person
that has been intentionally the publisher of a work which
the jury found was contrary to pubHc morals was guilty of
the offence charged. Therefore the jury found a verdict of
guilty.

Mrs. Besant : I urge, with all possible submission to this
Court and with every respect to the judge who gave the
direction, that the special verdict of the jury, by all prece-
dent, ought to have been put on record.

The Lord Chief Justice : You cannot argue so. It
must either be a verdict of guilty or not guilty. It is open
to you to argue that I ought to have directed the jury other-
wise, but you must have, in criminal cases, a verdict of guilty
or not guilty.

289

Mrs. Besant : Such a verdict as this has been entered,
my lord, as these cases show.

The Lord Chief Justice : If there was nothing in the
verdict which was favourable to the book, then I must put it
to you that there could not, in the end, be a verdict of any-
thing else but guilty.

Mr. Justice Mellor : If the verdict of the jury acquitted
the defendants of matter essential to the offence, the verdict
should be one of not guilty, but that depends upon the pre-
vious question, "What did constitute the elements of the
offence ? "

Mrs. Besant : Quite so, my lord.

Mr. Justice Mellor : I also think that the direction of
the judge was perfectly unimpeachable. The intention was the
publication of the book, and the part of the indictment which
laid the intention was not proved ; and, on the other hand,
the intention to publish v/as not disproved. But the inten-
tion was to publish the book, and if the book itself be a
b)Ook having the tendency to corrupt public morals, although
the defendants have no corrupt intention, the publication
itself is an offence, and, as such, punishable, and whatever
the intention was, the publishing is ik> less an offence, the
book being of the character found. I^esides you intended
to circulate, and in circulating the bocj)k you are doing an
overt act, and the judge directed very tightly, I think. That
is really the essence of the matter.

Mrs. Besant : I am afraid I shah be obliged to press
upon your lordships that, as the indictment stands, we
have been found guilty of an intention to corrupt, in the
words of the indictment itself, and it is not quite fair when
that is distinctly done away with that the verdict should
stand as a verdict of guilty on that indictment, although no
such intention as is alleged is found.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is as far as you are
morally concerned. The jury have acquitted you of any
corrupt intention.

Mrs. Besant : And, my lords, having done so, can there
be a verdict of guilty ? The verdict of guilty will be recorded
on that indictment, and tliere will be no record of the
acquittal of evil motive".

Mr. Justice Mellor : You are found guilty of an offence
against the law.

Mrs. Besant : In the cases of Lambert and Eaton, in
both of which there was the same verdict as that returned

290

here, and in all the cases, without one exception, so far as I
know, when it was moved that the verdicts be set aside, a
new trial was granted. There was one case where the
verdict was one of guilty of publishing only.'' That was
the case of Woodfall, and there, by an appeal to the House
of Lords, a decision for a new trial was given. Lord Chief
Justice Mansfield delivered the judgment, and he said that
the word " only " entirely vitiated the verdict : It is im
possible to say with certainty what the jury really did mean;,
probably they had different meanings. If they could possibly
mean that which is expressed would acquit the defendant, he
ought not to be concluded by this verdict. It is possible
some of them might mea i not to find the whole sense and
explanation put upon the paper by the inuendoes in the in-
formation. If a doubt arises from an ambiguous and un-
usual word in the verdict, the Court ought to lean in favour
of a venire de novo. We are under the less difficulty,
because, in favour of a defendant, though the verdict be
full, the Court may grant a new trial. And we are all of"
opinion, upon the whole of the case, that there should be a
venii'e de novo.''^

Mr. Justice Mellor : There is no doubt as to what the
jury intended in your case. They intended to find that the
book was one which had a tendency to corrupt public
morals.

Mrs. Besant : And yet they found that we had no such
intention to corrupt, which, I venture to say, is a contradic-
tion of terms.

Mr. Justice Mellor : You must not confound corrupt
intention with intentions of a moral quality.

Mrs. Besant : It was presumably a case of malicious and
corrupt intent when a book was alleged to be dangerous to
the State, and yet, as I have shown, where the verdict
was of this character, the Court granted a new trial on the
ground of the ambiguity of the verdict returned. I have, I
think, therefore, the right to ask your lordships, seeing that
the jury were undecided for an hour and thirty-five minutes,
and that, at last, they brought in a verdict acquitting us of
all intention to corrupt, to grant us a new trial. It is not
contended that the book contains language not proper in a
medical book ; and it is altogether a case of such difficulty
that I think we ought to have a new trial, and so have the
opportunity of arguing the case once more. Especially is
that reasonable when so many cases are found where special

291

verdicts have resulted in new trials, and I trust that this
Court will not make the new precedent of pressing against a
defendant, where a verdict such as this has been given. If it
is maintained by this Court that our demand for a new trial
should not be allowed, a new law will have been made by the
verdict of the jury, because the offence of advocating checks
upon over-population was not known to the law until that
verdict was given ; and I will venture to urge that, if the
verdict be sustamed as a verdict ot guilty, it will be mxain-
taining a verdict of guilt of opinion, and not a verdict of
guilt of act ; and, however confident the jury may be that
their verdict is right, it should not be allowed that they are
a competent tribunal to judge of the character of opinions ;
they should have no power to bring the holders of such
opinions, whether the opinions be right or wrong, within the
reach of the criminal law. If you do that you will be acting
in a most high-handed way, and introducing a precedent of
a most dangerous character. You will be giving the right to
a jury of stopping the discussion of any question on which
they disagree with the prisoner, and to maintain that verdict
in this Court will be to bring a large number of people
within the reach of the law, because they come before a jury
whose opinions happen to disagree with those which they
hold.

The Lord Chief Justice : If you put that as a matter of
law, I agree that it would be very unfair to create such a
precedent, but I doubt whether this verdict does so.

Mrs. Besant : I contend that it does, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : You both concurred with
the remark of the Solicitor-General, that this was a matter
entirely for the jury.

Mrs. Besant : That is very true, my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : It is not a question for the
judge, but eminently for the jury ; but now you say, although
on the trial it was entirely for the jury, that because the verdict
happens to be against you it should not be allowed to
stand.

Mrs. Besant : No, my lord, I do not say that. I say that
the verdict ought to be set aside because it is self-contradic-
tory, and also because the decision of the jury was given,,
your lordship says, not against the language of the book,
which they might fairly judge, but against the advocacy of
preventive checks to population — a question of ethics
which, I submit, they are not competent to decide. I

T 2

292

acknowledge that their verdict was supreme in the court
below, but many verdicts have been set aside, and there is a
right of appeal against verdicts given by juries.

The Lord Chief Justice : No doubt ; but it was a matter
entirely and eminently for the jury, entirely within their
cognizance, and the Court cannot say that the jury have gone
wrong. Why are we to take upon ourselves to say, then,
that their verdict should be set aside ?

Mrs. Besant : They did not bring in a verdict of guilty,
my lord.

The Lord Chief Justice : They did, indeed. They
brought in the verdict they intended. They said, our
opinion is that the book is corrupt, but we do not think
the intention of the defendants in publishing the book is
corrupt, direct us v/hat to do. And I directed them that
if they found the book to be of that character the intention
was not for them, and that the verdict was one of guilty.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, I will leave it, then, upon that
p3int.

The Lord Chief Justice : They did not know how the
law would affect the case under the special circumstances.

Mrs. Besant : This verdict, I think, is of so doubtful a
character that it ought to be taken as ground for a new trial.

The Lord Chief Justice : Suppose another jury had sat
upon the case, and that they said the book is not one that
ought to be published, but we think the defendants pub-
lished it v/ith the motive that they thought they were acting
for the good of the people, or that they published it in ignor-
ance.

Mrs. Besant : My lord, that happened in the case of the
prosecution of the publisher of Paine, and after the second
expression of opinion the prosecution dropped, and the right
to publish the works became admitted, and they are now
openly sold. A verdict of this kind has, many times, been
made the ground of a new trial before, and I trust you will
think it a ground for ordering a new trial now. I simply leave
that for your lordships' decision.

The Lord Chief Justice : Do you wish to add anything
on the subject of the indictment now, Mr. Solicitor-General ?

The Solicitor-General : I would not have been sorry
if the defendant had not quoted the case of Dr. Sacheverell.
The decision of the House of Lords was, that it was not
necessary to set out the particular words upon the face ot
an indictment, after the opinion of the judges was known.

293

In a note appended to the case there is a reference to the
case of Layer, where the whole matter v/as brought up and
discussed. It is to be found reported in Howell's State
Trials, volume xvi., where it was contended that the matter
that was charged was treason, and the act of publishing
ought to have been set out in the indictment. It was
decided that the opinions given in the case of Sacheverell
were wrong. That is stated in the note to the passage in
the report which was quoted by the defendant.

The Lord Chief Justice : The difficulty I have, and
my learned brother concurs, it may well be said that the
matter relied upon by the prosecution as libellous should
be set out in the indictment in order to enable the defendant
to demur. He might say we admit the facts ; we admit the
publication ; but we deny that it is libellous matter, and we
challenge the decision of the Court upon that. He may
raise it when this matter is brought before the Court, and
say that it is not libellous.

The Solicitor-General : I submit that he could not do
so in this particular case. I am anxious to call your atten-
tion to the fact that the v/ords said to be libellous are used
in two different senses, and where it consists of obscene
language, it is a nuisance and an offence against public
morality. One distinction which will strike you is, that in
an indictment for an obscene libel, which is a nuisance, he
may urge that it is truthfully and plainly uttered ; that was
the defence made at the Sessions, and it is the observation
and arguments that are made now.

The Lord Chief Justice : I do not know that.

The Solicitor-General: Vvliat we say is, that all libel-
lous matter is calculated to injure public morality — and in
this particular case it consists of printed words — and that it
would be equally obscene if it had consisted in a represen-
tation by a picture.

The Lord Chief Justice : So we might have a form of
line in the shape of figures instead of words.

The Solicitor-General : No doubt ; but observe Vv^hat
we would come to if the contention were carried ,out. Could
it be said that an indictment for an obscene libel consisting
of a picture, the picture itself should be described, and not
only the figures themselves, but the particular indecenc}
which the figures suggest, should be fully set out. I am
not aware that the question has ever been before the
Courts in England, but it has been tv/ice before the Courts

294

in America. But I argue that this matter should be decided
by common sense. Whether the illustration is contrary to
public morals, or whether it is described as a printed book,
it is sufficient notice to the defendant to give its title, and,
whether the indictment charges the whole of the book or
not, to call attention to matters which will be proved on the
hearing of the charge.

The Lord Chief Justice : What you rely upon was not
the particular tendency of the work, but upon particular
passages charged as obscene and indecent. Is a man to go
through the whole book to ascertain what passages you may
mean ?

The Solicitor-General : If the whole book treated of
is not indicted, but if the book as a whole is charged, one
of Uyo things would happen — either the whole of it w^ould
have to appear upon the records, or it would be sufficient
to simply call it an obscene book. It cannot be contended
that the whole of a book should be so set out — in this case
the book we are dealing with consists of 47 pages, but it
might be 447, then it would seem to be bringing the
administration of that part of the practice of our law to
ridicule — to say that the Court must have the whole of the
matter which may be complained of, and which might be
of the most offensive character, perpetuated upon its records.
There are books v/hich one knows to be of the most
indecent possible character, and will it be said that all these
books should become pubhc, by being placed upon th^
official records of this court ?

The Lord Chief Justice : I remember that in the
indictment against Wilkes which I recently had occasion to
look up, and which was for publishing and circulating
indecent matter, that the notice of the book was not con-
sidered enough, but the w^hole of the indecent lines are fully
set out.

The Solicitor-General: Yes, my lord, but that was
before the passing of Fox's Libel Act, and up to that time
that might have been the recognized practice. At that time
it was held that libel or no libel was the question for the
Court to decide. Then it was not a question for the jury —
the only question of fact being that of publication. At that
time it was intelligible enough that upon the records should
appear that which constituted the subject of the offence, for
the Court had to say whether it was libellous or not.

The Lord Chief Justice : This course might take away

295

from the defendant the right to demur. The defendant
might say : I admit I pubhshed the book, but it is not a
libel. You may say that it is a nuisance against public
morals. I do not agree to that, and I want to see the
matter which is to be brought to the knowledge of the
Court for its decision, because I deny that it amounts to a
libel.

The Solicitor-General : That is a question which, in
the present state of the law, the Court could never deter-
mine. It is a question entirely for the jury. That, in my
opinion, is one reason why the matter in contest need not
be set forth in length upon the indictment. The Courts now
have no right to say what is libel, or Avhat is not.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is for the prosecution,
not for the defendant, to contend. Suppose the defendant
were to say, I do not desire to have the verdict of the jury.
I take my stand upon the law, and say that upon the face
of the thing it is no libel.

The Solicitor-General : I submit to your lordship that
the Court could not decide that question ; it would be ex-
clusively a question for the jury to decide.

The Lord Chief Justice : If once the case comes to
the hearing, then it becomes a matter for a jury, and a jury
only. But if he takes the preliminary objection, you cannot
avoid meeting it.

The Solicitor-General : The answer to that, my lord,
would be, if it was a question of demurrer, that it is not a
matter for the Court to decide.

The Lord Chief Justice : If the defendant says so,
and I do not see why he should not, the difficulty would
then arise.

The Solicitor-General : At the time I am referring to
my lord, the judges had all held, as a matter of law and
practice, that it was for the Court and the Legislature com-
bined to declare what was the issue that should go to the
jury.

The Lord Chief Justice : I do not care who has
asserted these opinions : I venture to say, in my humble
judgment, that it was a most preposterous and tyrannical
law.

The Solicitor-General : This precise question has
come before the Courts in America, and they have held that
the indecent matter in the case of ''The Commonwealth
against Peter Holmes," which you will find in the 17th

296

Massachusetts Reports, the defendant was prosecuted for an
obscene libel, and was indicted at the Circuit Court charged
with circulating the " Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure/^
and publishing the same book, the same objection was made
there that is made here. It was contended that the obscene
matter ought to have been set out in the indictment. Chief
Justice Parker says that where the charge is for publishing
an obscene book, it never can be required that the whole of
the obscene book or picture should be displayed upon the
records of the Court, This vfould be to require that the
public records should give prominence and notoriety to the
obscene libels in order to punish the defendant. This was
the state of the law up to the time that the prosecution of
the Queen v. O'Connell reversed it.

Mr. Justice Mellor : Are you aware of any case in Eng-
land w^here there is a conviction for libel contained in any
book or newspaper in which the libel has not been fully set
out?

The Solicitor-General : This book was indicted at
Bristol, but I am not aware that any book has been indicted
in this particular form till then. That is very recent, and
that it has been indicted in this form is certain, and the
person who drew up this indictment drew it up from that
precedent. Both here and at the Old Bailey that has been
done.

The Lord Chief Justice : What is the other case to
which you refer ? You say there is another case ?

The Solicitor-General : The first is the Commonwealth
against Sharpies and Others, and the casei reported in
vol. 2 of Sargerton and Rawle in \\v^ Pennsylvania Court>
There the indictment v/as for exhibiting an indecent picture,
and the particular objection taken was that it was not
obscene. That was the very form of the objection Avhich
your lordship put to me just nov/. It vras said by the defen-
dant that it must set out distinctly, so thai he might prepare
his defence, and that the Court might know precisely the
charge it had to try. Then follov/s tlie argument upon that
subject. Chief Justice Tilman delivers the judgment of the
Court. The second reason urged, he says, " is that the pic-
ture is not sufficiently described. The indictnient de-
scribes the position of the figures \ if necessary the jury
will judge from the description whether it is sufficient or
not. I am of opinion that it is sufficient." That was
stated when the Court was sitting /;/ banco. Mr. Justice Yates

297

and Mr. Justice Brackenbridge were of a similar opinion.
These are the only cases which I can find bearing upon the point.
There is no authority in our own courts v/here a precedent
of rhe same kind is to be found. In Dearsley, page 64,
Queen v. Dugdale., is reported, and that is the only English-
case that bears in any wriy on this particular point of law.
In that case the defendant was indicted for having these v>^orks
in his possession for the purpose of distributing, and in his
business libels had been printed for the purposes of circu-
lation, but the parts held by the whole Court to be libels had
not been set out on the indictment, the only allegation being
that, in printing, he had done so v/ith the intention of pub-
lishing obscene Ubels.

The Lord Chief Justice : The exception taken there
was that the libels were not set out.

The Solicitor-General : I cannot fmd that that point-
appears to have been suggested.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then it is not a precedent.

The Solicitor-General : All that one can say was that it
was a discussion upon a point of error, and that it was before
Lord Campbell that the case was originally tried at the
Middlesex Sessions, and brought here upon a writ of error.
The case was argued before Lords Campbell, Cole, and
Crompton, and they gave judgment upon the question,
whether this nuisance disclosed an offence in point of law.

The Lord Chief Justice : Well ?

The Solicitor-General : That appears to be the objec-
tion urged, and coming as the case did before such a Court,,
it seems strange that the objection raised in this case was not
urged by the counsel that were engaged in it.

The Lord Chief Justice : On a point of error you can
only deal with the objection raised.

The Solicitor-General : And I say, my lord, that it is
too late to raise any objection now, for I take it that the
defendants are in the same position now as they were before
the trial, for it vv^ould have been too late to have raised it
even then. It should have been raised by demurrer. I say
it vv'as not competent for him to have raised the question as
to demurrer at the beginning of the trial, though if the con-
tention was good then, it is good now. Issue was joined,
and the pleadings proceeded, and even if he had applied in
time to quash the indictment, the universal usage is that the
Court will not quash an indictment for defects, but requires
that that shall be taken by demurrer.

298

The Lord Chief Justice : It may be taken on a motion
of arrest of judgment.

The Solicitor-General : Bat if the Court had held that
the intent was proved, and if it was an averment improperly
made, your lordship must have directed the jury to find the
defendants guilty, unless the allegation which was improperly
made, was protested against at the trial. It is upon the
Queen v. Robert Goldsmith, where the indictment charged
overt acts and false pretence, without setting out the false
pretence, that the motion in arrest of judgment was too late.
You cannot make a motion of that kind on trial which ought
to have been taken on demurrer. It is an indecent book,
and the jury have found it to be so. If this is so, then the
case of the Queen v. Dugdale becomes a distinct authority,
especially as the specific objection was not in the higher
court. If there was error upon the face of it, the Court
could then have taken notice of it, although I think, how-
ever, as I have said, that coming before such a Court as that,
the question would have been raised. It would produce
great scandal to set out the words in an indictment, and
would be putting upon public record such obscene books as
those that are sold in Holywell Street, and yet that must be
done if the objection is valid.

The Lord Chief Justice : Where do you find authority
for saying that ? The lav/ applicable to offences by libel
seems to act in this way.

Mr. Justice Mellor : I cannot find any reference to setting
out words. It was a question whether it was an offence to
have such works for publication, and I cannot find anything
in the case upon the point you are arguing.

The Solicitor-General : In the case of Dugdale, the
point was not decided.

The Lord Chief Justice : Nor does it appear to be pre-
sent in the minds of the counsel.

The Solicitor-General : It was argued by able counsel,
and the point is not raised. It was raised in the American
courts. .

The Lord Chief Justice : Whose decisions are always
to be highly respected by us.

Mr. Justice Mellor : The offence was that it was a libel
affecting the public, and not individuals.

The Solicitor-General : Just so, and that is the very
question that is raised here, and the Courts both gave judg-
ment that the books and picture were against public morality.

299

It was held that it was not necessary that these should be
set out on the face of the indictment or the records of the
court.

Mr. Mead : I should like to add a word or two to what
has been said by the Solicitor-General. I contend that this
is not a libel in the technical sense of the word ; and if it is
so at all, it is so only in common parlance. If your lord-
ship takes a dictionary, you will find that two meanings are
given. The first, its corrupt sense, as something
in the nature of a defamatory statement ; secondly, it is
described as a small book. Its primary meaning is taken
from the Latin word libellus, and in that sense it is taken in
the Ecclesiastical Courts of Scotland. It is used here in its
primary sense, and it is not necessary, in framing an indict-
ment, to use the word libel at all ; and it is so understood
by Archibald.

The Lord Chief Justice : They are charged with selling
a libel.

Mr. Mead : It is used here merely in its primary
sense.

The Lord Chief Justice : What do you mean by its
primary sense ?

Mr. Mead : That it is merely a small book.

The Lord Chief Justice : That is not the sense of libel
in English law. It may be a very big book. The bigger
the book, the bigger the libel. (Laughter.)

Mr. Mead : It comes from the vrord libellus.

The Lord Chief Justice : We all know that ; but in
English law a libel is not a little book.

Mr. Mead : In Archibald the word published " is not
used, nor is the word libel."

The Lord Chief Justice : Here it is used^ and in our
Courts, and has always been treated so.

Mr. Mead : I contend that it is not a libel : and in the
case of The King against Sedley, it is so put expressly, and
the argument that it is a libel is not applicable to the
present case. In the 14th and 15th Vic, cap. 100, ^sec. 29,
certain principles are made applicable, as in common law
misdemeanours ; and one of the words is that the book
should be obscene, and I contend that the word libel need
not be used.

Mr. Bradlaugh: I regret that the learned Solicitor-
General thought right to represent me as having omitted to
refer your lordships to the case of Christopher Layer,

300

because the decision was hostile to me. I thought that I
liave stated precisely where it could be found, and that it
was a case of high treason.

Mr. Justice Mellor : You refj^rred to it in general terms.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am afraid that the Solicitor-General
and myself must have different reports both of the case of
Layer and that of Sacheverell, for it is impossible to imagine
that any one in his high position would misrepresent, and
it is almost as difficult to comprehend how a gentleman of
his ability can have misunderstood. The Solicitor-General
stated that the decisions of the judges upon which I relied
for a favourable answer to my motion had all been over-
ruled by the House of Lords. This is utterly the reverse
of the case. The trial of Sacheverell was an impeachment
by Parliament, and the decision of the Lords in no
sense over-ruled or even questioned the dicta of the
judges who were all agreed that by the laws of England and
constant practice in all prosecutions by indictment or
information for crimes or misdemeanors in writing or
speaking, the particular w^ords supposed to be criminal
ought to be specified in the indictment or information;" after
hearing the judges the House of Lords resolved that the
practice in indictments did not apply to parliamentary pro-
cedure. The words are, 15 Howell, p. 467: It is resolved
by the Lords, spiritual and temporal, in Parliament assem-
bled, that by the law and usage of Parliament in prosecu-
tions by impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours,
by writing or speaking, the particular words supposed to be
criminal are not necessary to be expressly specified in such
impeachment." The v/ords of the House of Lords' decision
are expressly limited to their own parliamentary practice,
and do not in the most remote degree overrule the solemn
opinions of the judges ; indeed the Lord Chancellor told
Sacheverell, p. 473, " the answer of the judges which
related only to the course used in indictments and informa-
tion does not in the least affect the case." In the case, too,
of Layer, my reading of it is very different from that of the
Solicitor- General. I have read the case with special care^
and, with the exception of the judgment of Mr. Justice Eyre,
I cannot find a single word to justify the view of the case
given by the learned Solicitor-General ; so far from all the
judges agreeing to reverse the opinions in Sacheverell's
case, Mr. Justice Powys shov\^s that there was a clear dis-
tinguishment in the case of treason. No doubt Justice

301

Eyre is strong against me, but Layer was tried when party
feeling ran high as to the rights of the House of Hanover
as against the Stuarts, and he is only one judge against all the
others. I quite admit that the note in Sacheverell's case is
as represented by the Solicitor-General, but the note is
utterly incorrect, as notes very often are, if made by those
who have no special responsibihty. The difficulty in
regard to the American cases is that I have not
had the advantage of reading them, and can hardly judge
whether the Solicitor-General has fairly gathered their
effect. I ask your lordships to dismiss from your minds
one of the American cases that has been quoted, because it
refers to a print, and not to a book. I do not and will
not contend that the same argument should be applied to
paintings or prints as I seek to apply here. I contend that
the decision and practice of the court is specific as to the
words spoken or written being set out. I ask your lordships
to dismiss from your minds one of the two cases which have
been referred to. In the first case my diftlculty is that,
according to the learned Solicitor-General — and I have no
doubt that he has given the fullest information — there are two
counts — the first count for publishing prints and the second
count for publishing books. Well, without examination of
the case, I cannot tell how much of the decision related to
the print, how much to the book, or whether it may be
correctly apprehended by the learned Solicitor-General, or
with what correctnesshe has represented it,orwhether he may
be as mistaken in this case as I have found he has been
mistaken in his views on the Sacheverell case. AVith reference
to the Queen against Dugdale, allow me to say that it has
nothing whatever to do with this case. There one count
was objected to that it was no offence to have obscene
works in defendant's possession with intent to utter. The
errors specially assigned do not raise the point I now make ;
surely it is not because the learned counsel for the
defendant in that case might have overlooked the point,
that I am to be damnified by some decision which was not
given. This is really putting the case a little too much against
me. I assume the learned Solicitor-General only brought
in the case of the Queen agamst Dugdale because the
other English decisions were so much in my favour that it
was necessary to do something. Again, the learned Sofi-
citor-General suggests that my motion is too late. Now, I
will quote to you the 14th and 15th Victoria, chap. 100

302

sec. 25, which says that every objection by demurrer to
quash the indictment shall be taken before the jury shall
be -sworn. Then the learned Solicitor-General comes to
the case of the Queen z\ Goldsmith ; and here again I was.^
utterly surprised that my apprehension of the case should
have been so entirely different from that of the learned Soli-
citor-General. I rely for making out the right to ask you
to quash the conviction upon the decision of Lord Chief
Justice Bovill in that case, who, in deciding against the ap-
plication, says : "If the judge thought the objection clearly
a good one he might have quashed the indictment, and
that would have left the prisoner open to another indict-
ment. He was, however, not bound to quash the indict-
ment, bad as it might be ; and further, he might think the
point a doubtful one, and, if doubtful, he might leave the
party to his w^t of error or reserve the point. In this
case the Deputy Recorder did not quash the indictment,
but reserved the point not as to whether he ought to quash,
but as to whether the count was a good one or not." I submit,
my lord, that the Queen z;. Goldsmith is distinctly in my favour^
and I seek to have this point put before you as clearly as
possible. I avow that, probably, though from my utter un-
acquaintance with the exigencies of special pleading, I
utterly failed to understand how Fox's Act could be any im-
pediment to me, and the 33rd George III., chapter 60, does
not deprive me of any rights in this Court to ask whether
there is, in law, any libel. I understand that the express
wording of the statute is : it shall be lawful for the defendant
to move in arrest of judgment and that there is no sort of
restriction put upon the defendant. It is an additional
privilege or right given to the defendants by statute, and not
in any sort of fashion a restriction of any rights they may
have had before. I submit, my lord, that we are in this
position. Instead of putting your lordships to a long trial
and a 7iisi J>rius argument, as has been the case, if we had
got the reports in the record, we might have demurred.
There was a doubt in our minds as to whether there was
any offence in law. If we had had the material on the face
of the indictment, we should have taken the easiest and
quickest steps to settle the matter. In no sense have I
delayed the procedure, for the very moment I got the
writ of ctrtiorari I proceeded at once to give notice and get
a day named. The practical effect of this would be that the
Solicitor-General says the Crown may shut out of the record

3^3

what is material for the Court to know, for I will not con-
descend to discuss whether your lordships would have the
right on a demurrer to say whether the indictment raised the
offence at all or not. I should not have thought that a gen-
tleman with so long an experience at the bar would have
been capable of maintaining a proposition so outrageous.
Surely the Court is the supreme judge as to whether the
record puts any difficulty in the way of the defence ; and if the
difficulty which he has raised with regard to the demurrer
be well-founded, my difficulty would be this, that in demurring
to the indictment without knowing the point, I should
be laying myself open to a vv^ild hght in the dark.

The Lord Chief Justice : No, that was not it. The
Solicitor-General suggests that you might have demurred on
this point — on the ground that the indictment did not set out
the words.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I suppose I still have a right to move
for the quashing of the indictment on the same ground ?

The Lord Chief Justice : No, no.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Well, in that alternative I shall move
for an arrest of judgment. If I am not right in my motion
to quash the indictment I am right in a motion for an arrest
of judgment ; if the argument on the one ground fails, that
on the other must go. I do not know that I need trouble
your lordship with the sort of appeal made to the feelings
of the Court as to whether or not good sense required
that the words of the indictment should be set out. I sub-
mit that it is admitted to be a distinct matter of law and
practice that we are entitled to have the offence with which
we are charged clearly brought to our knowledge. Really,
my lord, until entering this Court we did not know — and the
language of the learned counsel before the magistrates aggra-
vated the inconvenience — whether it was that the advocacy of
checks was unlawful, or whether the language of the advocacy-
was obscene. And we were left in that difficulty until we came
into the Court here, and I submit that your lordships will
not put the defendants in that position. I submit, further,,
that when the learned Solicitor-General pleads that on some
other indictment, in some other place of which I know
nothing, and of which I can have no kncwledge, the
same blunder was made, that your lordships will not enter-
tain the argument for a moment to cover a similar blunder
here. In Folkard, where the form of indictment is given,
it states clearly that the passages are to be set out. I am

304

told that in Archbold you will find an indictment for pub-
lishing a print, in which the exact reproduction of the print is
iiot set out. I do not pretend that in the case of a picture my
argument would hold good, but I do maintain that the words
complained of must be specifically set out, so that the de-
fendant may see what is the charge he has to meet. It is
clearly put on page 803. I submit that, bearing in mind the
real verdict of the jury, this is a case in which your lord-
ships would be disposed to give me and my co-defendant the
fullest advantage of every objection that could be urged by
us, and which would keep us from the additional stigma
that would otherwise be cast upon us.

The Lord Chief Justice : No more than in any other
case. If you can take objection to the procedure upon
which the verdict has been arrived at, you are entitled to
take it, but as far as I am concerned there is no difference
between one case and another.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I submit that the learned Solicitor-
General has said nothing which would induce your lord-
ships to say that the point has not been decided in my
favour by the whole of the authorities I have quoted.

Mrs. Besant : I do not think I need trouble your lordships
with more than a word after the remarks of my co-defendant.
The learned Solicitor-General seemed to be under some
difficulty in regard to the English cases, for he was obliged
to quote American. He was unable, apparently, to
find a single one which supported his contention in the
practice of our own courts to set against the number in our
favour, and he was therefore obliged to go to the practice of
the courts in foreign countries. I argue, on the contrary,
that we are not bound by the decisions of the courts in
any other country, however friendly that country may be
to us.

Mr. Justice Mellor : We do not say that we are bound
by such cases, but we say that we pay great respect to them,
because in America they administer to a large extent the
same law.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I have to state that I have studied the
law of Massachusetts, and that the common law of Massa-
chusetts is not on all fours with the common law of
England.

Mrs. Besant : It is evident that the case ot the learned
Solicitor-General is so extremely v/eak that he could not
find a single English case to help his contention, but is

305

obliged to fall back upon cases cited from a foreign
country. As to spoiling the records of the Court, if the
learned Solicitor-General will look through them, he will
find that the invariable practice of the Court has been to
set out the libels. I do not knov/ why a sudden change
should be made simply to injure the present defendants. In
the case of the Queen v. Curll you v/ill find that the libel
was set out, and that it is the invariable practice right
through. The effect on us of the contrary is most unfair.
We thought from the indictment that the whole book was
attacked, and we thought we had covered everything, and
it was not until after the verdict of the jury was given that
we discovered the crime alleged. Had we known that there
was an objection to the vv^hole theory of preventive checks
we should have acted differently ; but we considered, I say,
that we had covered the whole of the book, and we were
not aware that ov^ special point upon which vv^e had no in-
formation was the point upon which a verdict was to be
given by the jury.

The Lord Chief Justice : I am clearly of opinion that
there should be no new trial. In this case the question was
eminently one for the decision of a jury. There can be no
better tribunal than twelve men taken, as the Solicitor-
General, I thought, happily expressed it, from an average of
the intelligence of society, or one better competent to dis-
pose of a question of this kind, namely, whether this publi-
cation was calculated to be subversive of public morals or
not ; and lest any feelings of sentiment, prejudice, or pas-
sion might interfere with the deliberate judgment of the
jury, I thought it right — especially after the pov/erful
address of the learned Solicitor-General in reply, when
he appeared to me to address himself to the sentiment
as well as to the judgment of the jury — I thought
it ought to bring the case finally before them in all
the various aspects in which it has been presented for
discussion, and without the slightest desire in one way or the
other to bias or influence the judgment of the jury, who, I
thought, ought to proceed from their own spontaneous sense
of what was right. All parties, at that time, seemed to
be agreed that the question was one for a jury, and exclu-
sively for a jury, and I left it to the jury. I presented to
th^m the case from all the different points of view, and^
finally, repeated to them what had been said on one
side and on the other, and the various views of the case

3o6

which had been advocated by the prosecution and by the
defendants. The jury were a most patient and attentive
jury, and Hstened in uninterrupted attention and care
to all that was said. They took time to deliberate,
and they pronounced a verdict that this book is a
book which ought not to have been published, and that
it is a book calculated to deprave public morals. Now,
that being so, there is nothing brought before us that,
in my opinion, turns on the question of fact as to whether
this book was a proper or improper one, or that calls for a
review of the judgment and decision of the jury. But it is
said that it is open for the defendants to contend that the
verdict of the jury was not a verdict of guilty. Now I think
that the contention is wrong. The jury were evidently in
doubt as to the effect of the facts upon which their minds
were agreed. They were agreed that the tendency and effect
of the book was to corrupt public morals ; but, on the other
hand, they were satisfied that, under the influence of a strong
belief that the evils of over-population were so great that k
vras desirable to have recourse to means of preventive
checks, and that, impelled by this opinion and desire, the
defendants had pubhshed this work, but not with the inten-
tion to corrupt the morals of young or old. The jury specially
found upon these facts, and it was my duty to tell the jury
and I believe so now, that where persons publish a word
which is contrary to the morals of mankind, and they do
that with their eyes open, it is not for them afterwards to
say, " I did that either with the view of doing something in
itself so good as to warrant the infraction of the law,'' or
to say, I did it in ignorance of the law." Nobody can
.allege either of these two things as an excuse for a breach
of the law; no one can put himself above the law, no one
'Can refuse obedience to the law. I think, therefore, that
^pon the facts found by the jury I was right to tell the jury
that it amounted to a verdict of guilty. In that direction
they acquiesced, and returned a verdict of guilty, evidently
taking the view that I had done. The foreman turned
round and took the opinion of the jury, and they acquiesced.
I think, therefore, there can be no question as to a new
trial, either upon the ground that the verdict was in the
first instance a special one, or that the verdict was not in
accordance with the facts which were before them. It is
said that although there could be no new trial, as the verdict
of the jury was conclusive on the facts, nevertheless the

307

indictment cannot be sustained and that we ought now
to arrest the judgment upon the verdict by rea-
son of the legal insufficiency of the indictment. Well,
that is founded upon this proposition, that in an
indictment for libel where the libellous matter consists of
words, the words must be set out in order, so that the
defendant may know what it is that he is called upon to
answer, and that if he chooses to take the legal objections,
which he may do on demurrer, on the sufficiency of the
indictment, he may have the opportunity of doing so. We
agree with that proposition. It is said that it would be
highly inconvenient that obscene matters should be
set out upon the records of the court, and that the
•same argument and the same rule would apply to the case of
an indecent print which applied to the case of indecent
words, and that it would be impossible, or at all events in the
highest degree objectionable, to exhibit an indecent print
upon an indictment which would afterwards form part of
the records of this court. We have had pressed upon us
two decisions of the American courts in banco, which we
treat with the utmost respect. These decisions are not so
conclusive upon us as if they were decisions of courts having
equal jurisdiction in this country, but we look to the
decisions of the American courts with very great respect,
and take advantage of them in the solution of questions of
law. Putting these decisions on one side, the question of
convenience presses upon us strongly. I agree that where
particular passages in the work, as contradistinguished from
the work itself, are made the subject-matter of an indictment,
it would be highly expedient that the attention of those
against whom the publication of such matters is made the
subject-matter of an indictment and a prosecution, should
have the opportunity of knowing what it is that they are to
direct their defence upon, and what the attention of the jury
will be afterwards directed to. I admit that ; but on the
other hand if not particular portions of the work, but the
work itself in its entirety and as a whole is made the subject-
matter of a prosecution, one cannot but see that it would
lead to the greatest inconvenience to have the whole of the
work, set out from beginning to end. We were told the other
day that a prosecution has recently been instituted, or was
about to be instituted, in respect of the publication of the
Memoirs of the Comte de Grammont," on the ground that
that was an indecent and obscene publication, because it

U 2

3o8

describes v/ith a great deal of particularity the licentious
habits of the court of Charles II. While I don't express
any opinion with reference to a prosecution founded upon
the publication of a work which has existed for a great
many years, and which has gone through many editions
and been translated into several languages, I merely
mention that as an instance of what would be the
monstrous inconvenience of setting out in extenso the
whole of the publication, which might consist of two or
three volumes. With regard to many other works which
could be mentioned which are more or less of an indecent
and indelicate character, and more or less inconsistent with
good morals, and which may therefore be made the subject
matter of an indictment, where the objection to the work
is not that it contains particular passages which are ob-
jectionable, but that it is objectionable in toto, it would lead
to a degree of inconvenience that v/e cannot help taking
notice of. At the same time there is a good deal to be said
on both sides, but I do not think it was competent that I
could proceed upon that to quash the indictment. The
Solicitor- General said the defendants should have applied
earlier if they desired to have the indictment quashed.
For that reason it appears to me that I went too far, and
that I was not called upon to give leave to move upon it.
I do not think I was competent to do it. I do not think the
defendants could have an advantage of that sort. With refer-
ence to this objection the difficulty I feel is that that objection
must have been taken by demurrer. If the omission be set out
in the indictment, the specific matter upon which the offence is
alleged to rest — if that be the objection, and it be a valid
one, it is an objection that must have been taken by de-
murrer, and, therefore, not without some sense of the
exigencies of the case as put in the arguments used by the
defendants. I cannot help thinking that, upon the balance
of convenience of the authorities we shall do more wisely
to say that the judgment pronounced upon this indictment
ought not to be set aside by making the motion absolute
to arrest the judgment ; but if there be any valid founda-
tion for the contention the defendants have raised upon the
indictment it should be taken by demurrer. As far as we
are concerned, it will not be necessary to act upon it, the
more so because the balance of convenience or incon-
venience, looking to the particular nature of this form of
libel — it is not specifically within the law of libel, but in

309

saying that it does not come within the category of a
libel, it, to a certain extent, arises out of the law of libel
generally, as it is conunufie documentum — which renders it not
a matter for the Crown on the one hand or a particular
individual on the other, but a matter complaint as to which
arises as to its being subversive of the public morals and
therefore a matter of public nuisance. Therefore, I cannot
feel that the authorities which have been cited for the pur-
pose of showing that in an indictment for libel the words
must be specially set forth, applies to this case. There are
the inconveniences under which the defendant may labour,
so that he may be put to the inconvenience and expense ol a
further trial, when judgment should be given in his favour
at once. You will find that advantage is not in this form
of indictment, and I think it is an advantage of which it is
very hard that the defendants should be deprived. There is
that inconvenience on the one side. We shall, therefore,
shelter ourselves under the decisions of the American courts,
but we leave this matter to be carefully gone into by the
Court of Error. I do not think that there should be any
new trial nor any rule for an arrest of judgment.

Mr. Justice Mellor : I am of the same opinion; I
quite think there is no ground urged for a nev/ trial, and
that some of the points raised for a new trial are more pro-
perly points for an arrest of judgment. One point was
raised by Mrs. Besent, v/hich had considerable prima facie
ingenuity, that on the question as to the intention of the
parties to publish this book, the jury had found there was
no corrupt intention, and, therefore, the jury had not found
on an essential part of the indictment. I have already ex-
pressed the opinion in regard to that, that the jury have
found that the book vv\ns calculated to corrupt the morals,
and that was not denied, although the corrupt intention was
denied. It appears to me that, upon the fmding of the jury,
and upon the facts of the case, there could be no objection to
the verdict upon that ground. I say if a person publishes a
book calculated to deprave, although his own intention may
not be malicious, v/icked, or immoral, still the very fact of
the intention to publish a book which is calculated, and
which the jury have found is calculated, to produce great
damage to the morals of the community, makes it, there-
fore, a book which comes within the rule vvdiich applies to
this prosecution in so far as the public is concerned ; and it
appears to me that no objection can be taken on that

3IO

ground. I also think the course taken with regard to the
finding of the jury was rightly taken by the Lord Chief
Justice. If he had said just before the conclusion of his
summing-up : If you find that so and so, if they did not do
so in meaning, yet did so in substance, you must find the
defendants guilty," there could be no possible form of
objection urged to it. But it is said that because the jury-
has found what Mrs. Besant calls a special verdict as to the
essential fact, coupled with the expression that they were
not guilty of the offence stated in the indictment, the
Lord Chief Justice ought to have directed the jury to-
return a verdict of not guilty. The Lord Chief Jus-
tice took the right course. The jury were asked if they
understood that they were finding a verdict of guilty and
they said they did. You cannot say, therefore, that any-
thing arises byway of error or arrest of judgment; with
regard to the other point, there is nothing which renders it
undesirable that an objection of this character should be
taken by demurrer upon the indictment. It is a point of de-
murrer. Kit is taken on demurrer, judgment is at once
given for the defendant if the demurrer succeeds. It was
not taken upon demurrer, which I think would have been the
wisest, best, and easiest course when dealing with this case-
to see that it contained the offence. There are the gravest
doubts w^hether the point would have been successful on
demurrer, but the jury have now interpreted and applied the
general description to the book in the indictment as obscene.
But if it be an essential and most material part of the in-
dictment to set forth the terms in which the libel was
pubhshed, that is still a question that may be taken
on error, but it cannot be made available for
arrest of judgment. AVe do not arrest judgment un-
less we are satisfied that there has been some error.
My contention is that there has been none ; v/hether
that be so or not I am clear now that the only remedy
which is open to the defendants is by bringing error on the
indictment, so as to obtain the opinion of the highest tri-
bunal to see whether it is so essential a part of the pro-
cedure that it vitiates utterly and entirely the whole pro-
ceedings. Therefore I can see no ground for either setting
aside the verdict or for arrest of judgment.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Might I a^k your lordship to stay exe-
cution until the error is determined ? There are cases of
misdemeanour in which that has been done.

311

Here the Court adjourned for luncheon. On re-assem-
bling,

The Solicitor-General said : I now pray the judgment
of the Court, the record being now in Court. My lord, I
have two affidavits, and I have to say that no notice of
them has been given to the defendants as the persons who
have made the affidavits could only be found last night, and
consequently they have only been made this morning.

The Lord Chief Justice : Have you any affidavits ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : None at all, my lord.

Master Cockburn then read the following affidavit : —

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION.

The Queen against Charles Bradlaugh and Annie-
Besant.

JOHN RIVETT makes oath and saith as follows :—

1. I reside at Number 15, Devonshire Street, Bishops-

gate, in the City of London, and am a news-
agent.

2. In the beginning of the month of May, 1877 (the

exact date I do not recollect), I saw the two
above-named defendants in their shop at Number
28, Stonecutter Street, in the City of London.

3. I then asked the defendant, Charles Bradlaugh, for

some copies of the book called " Fruits of Philo-
sophy," when he told me that they could not sell
any more copies there, as copies had been stopped
going through the post.

4. The said Charles Bradlaugh then gave me a card,

which had printed thereon the name of Mr.
Ramsey, Number 10, Shacklewell Street, Bethnal
Green Road, but which said card I have since
destroyed.

5. The said Charles Bradlaugh told me at the time he

handed to me the said card that I could obtain
thousands of copies of the said book called
''Fruits of Philosophy" at the address indicated
on the said card.

6. I immediately went to the said address, and pur-

chased several copies of the said book, which v/ere

312

similar to that which is now shown to me, and
marked ''A.''

7. At the end of the said month of May (the exact

date I do not recollect), the person who sold me
the said copies of the said book at the said
Number 10, Shacklewell Street aforesaid, and
who, to the best of my belief, is W. J. Ramsey, and
manager in the employment of the said defendants,
Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, told me he
could in future supply me with copies of the said
book at Number 9 in Shacklewell Street afore-
said.

8. Since the day I received the said card I have from

time to time on several occasions — that is to say,
twenty or thirty times — been to the said 9 and 10,
Shacklewell Street, and purchased large quantities
of copies of the said book.

9. On Saturday morning last, the 23rd day of June,

1877, I went to the said house. Number g,
Shacklewell Street, and purchased of the said W.
J. Ramsey one dozen copies of the said book
called Fruits of Philosophy," one copy of which
is the copy now shown to me and marked A."

10. On the same day my partner, Frederick Fennell,
obtained, as he has informed me, and as I verily
believe, two dozen copies of the said book ct the
same address.

11. I believe the said Mr. W. J. Ramsey referred to in
the said book now shown to me, and described
therein as the manager to the Freethought Pub-
lishing Company, to be the person who sold to me
the said copies of the said book.

Svvorn at my Office, No. 10, Basing- ]

hall Street, in the City of London, - JOFIN RIVETT.
this 27th day of June, 1877. j
Before me,

M. Downing,
A Commissioner to administer oaths in the
Supreme Court of Judicature.

313

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE,

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION,

The Queen. <7^i^//7j-/ Charles Bradlaugh and Annie
Besant.

DANIEL THOMAS LYSAGHT, makes oath and
saith as follows : — •

1. I am a reporter and shorthand writer, residing at 66,

Doddington Grove, Kennington Park.

2. On S.unday last, the 24th day of June, a.d. 1877, I

was present at a meetmg held at the Hall of
Science, Old Street.

3. The meeting was convened for the purpose of dis-

cussing the Population Question.

4. Both the defendants were present on the platform,

and addressed the meeting. The defendant,
Annie Besant, acted as President.

5. Numerous copies of the book, "The Fruits of Philo-

sophy,'' the subject of this indictment, were sold in
the room for the price of sixpence each, many of
the purchasers being young persons of both
sexes.

6. There v/ere about 600 persons present at the meet-

ing, and there was a crowd outside of those w^ho
vv^ere unable to obtain admission. The said book
was freely sold to many of the said persons out-
side.

7. I purchased the book now shown to me, and marked

" A," at the said meeting.

8. The report in the nev/spaper, the Alorning Adver-

tiser^ now shown to me, and marked " B," was
written by me, and is a correct report of the said
meeting.
Sworn at the West- .
minster Hall, in |

the County of Mid- > Dx\NIEL THOMAS LYSAGHT.
die sex, the 28th I
day of June, 1877. ^
Before me,

W. J. Cleave,
A Commissioner, &c.

Filed on the part of the Prosecution.

314

A newspaper report was attached to Lysaght's affidavit,,
and the Master asked if he should read it.

The Lord Chief Justice : The paper has been sent to
me, and, I must say, that a most unjustifiable use of my
name has been made — most unwarranted.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Allow me to say that the report in the
Morning Advertiser is totally incorrect.

The Lord Chief Justice : All I know is, that in my
summing-up, I endeavoured, and I feel satisfied that I did,
hold the scales of justice evenly.

Mr. Bradlaugh : We never said what is imputed to us.

The Lord Chief Justice : You say that I summed up
in your favour. I did nothing of the kind.

Mr. Bradlaugh : The report is simply stupidly incorrect
from beginning to end.

Mrs. Besant : I have not seen the report, and if it is to
be used against me, I must ask that it be read. I spoke
with the most extreme respect of your lordship.

The Lord Chief Justice : I mean that to represent me
as stating views different from the jury is wholly incorrect.
All that I endeavoured to do, as I said before, was to take
care that the verdict should not be given in a storm, but
that it should be the result of mature deliberation of the
case in all its bearings. That is a.11 I ende?tVOured to do,
and I am quite sure it is all I did.

Mrs. Besant : All I said in my speech was that the
summing-up was absolutely impartial. And I rejoiced that
there had gone forth from the Bench an endorsement of
Malthusianism which it had never before received.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I have seen the report, which is ridi-
culously inaccurate. If anything is to turn upon it, I must
ask to be allowed to answer it.

The Lord Chief Justice : The part of the report which
is most material is the part which represents you and Mrs.
Besant as saying that you \vould go on with the publication,,
let what would happen.

The Solicitor-General : That is the only reason why I
\ use the report.

Mrs. Besant : I ask as a matter of justice that the report
should be read.

The Clerk here read the paragraph in question from the
Morning Advertiser.

Mrs. Besant : Well, my lord, I have one or two points to

315

put to your lordship, as to the accuracy of the report. Am I
permitted to say anything?

The Lord Chief Justice : Oh, certainly.

Mrs. Besant : Only in answer to the report.

The Lord Chief Justice : Strictly speaking, it should be
by affidavit.

The Solicitor-General : I have no objection.

Mrs. Besant : I must remark, my lord, that the report is
utterly and grossly inaccurate. The meeting was not called
for the discussion of the Population Question, and no dis-
cussion of any kind took place. The value of the oath of
the reporter, as a matter of accuracy, may be judged by the
fact that he stated that there were 600 persons, whereas 141 8
paid for admission, as shown by the books. I do not put
that as a matter of importance, but merely to show that he
is not a man whose judgment should be brought here as
reliable on a matter of fact. Then he says that numerous
copies of the book were sold in the hall. If that is urged
against us, the sale must be proved, for neither I nor my co-
defendant have anything to do with selhng on Sunday night.
That we have the hall for lecturing cannot make us respon-
sible criminally for what occurs there. When I said that
the jury did not all assent to the direction of the judge, I
alluded to a letter that I had received, in which it was stated
that he did not assent to the verdict, and that it was by the
action of the foreman, and not of the jury, that the verdict
of guilty was given.

The Lord Chief Justice : He should have objected at
the time.

Mrs. Besant : No doubt, my lord, he ought to have had
the manliness to object there and then. It was no good to
talk to his friend about it afterwards. I mentioned it in the
hall as a moral justification at the time, and I did not pre-
sume to mention it here until now, knowing that it had no
legal value. The report says that I said that one of the most
highly-trained brains in England had declared in favour of
our views. It is true that I spoke of one of the "most highly-
trained brains in England and if that be any discourtesy to
the Court, I can only apologise for it. (Much laughter.) I
said what I believed, my lord, in simple honesty, but it is
what I should not have had the impertinence to say in this
presence if it had not been alluded to. I did not say that
that brain had declared in favour of the whole of our views^

3i6

but I did say that it declared in favour of Malthusianism, as
a law which could not be disputed.

The Lord Chief Justice : You must take it with refer-
ence to the only proposition I had in my mind, namely that
the tendency of population is to increase in a greater ratio
than the production of food, and that that was a law which
could not be disputed.

Mrs. Besant : Yes ; the law v/hich is ordinarily spoken of
as the law of Malthus ; but unless people are trained in these
works they do not know what that refers to. I said that
from the Bench we had had a declaration in favour of
the law of Malthus, and this, whether we went to gaol
or not, was a sufficient recompense for having gone before
a jury.

The Lord Chief Justice : You would have done much
better if you had left such propositions alone.

Mrs. Besant : I was only repeating what has been said
by the whole press of the country, that the trial had spread the
principles for v/hich we pleaded. With regard to the question
of stopping the circulation, I can only say that if the law
desires to stop the circulation of the book it must be stopped
legally, and no amount of prejudice that is tried to be raised
can be allov/ed to govern. As to the man who sv/ears that
Mr. Bradlaugh gave him a card with Mr. Ramsey's address
on it and sent him there, I can only say that I am one of
the two partners of the "Freethought Publishing Company,"
and that no card has been printed by us v/ith the name and
address of Mr. Ramsey upon it. Such a card has never
been printed, and it seems a pity to bring forward an
affidavit sworn to by a man v/hose statement is so utterly false
from begmning to end. We stopped the sale at Stonecutter
Street for a reason of our own, but never gave any kind of
card or direction as here stated.

' The Lord Chief Justice : The man says he was sent
from Stonecutter Street to another address.

Mrs. Besant : He says so, and he swears falsely.

The Lord Chief Justice : We must have this upon
affidavit.

Mr. Bradlaugh : There is no doubt, and no pretence
on our part to the contrary, my lord, that we have circu-
lated, and are continuing to circulate, the book. The wit-
ness, for some reason or other, has been extremely stupid ;
but whether we gave a card or not is a matter of no im-
portance, although, as a matter of fact, we did nothing of

317

the kind. There is no doubt that up to this time Vv^e have
circulated the book.

The Lord Chief Justice : I gave you fair warning that
you ran a risk in so doing.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Your lordship did. I do not Avish it
to be thought that I say this out of bravado, but simply as
a matter of fajt, so that we should not represent anything
incorrectly.

Mrs. Besant : It is not well to put too much stress upon
two affidavits so utterly inaccurate on these small points.

The Lord Chief Justice : The statement in that affi-
davit which is not denied is, that since the verdict of the
jury the circulation of the book is still going on.

Mrs. Besant : That is so, my lord.

Mr. Bradlaugh : While I have no personal knowledge
of it, I have no doubt that that is so.

The Lord Chief Justice : The matter assumes, then, a
very serious aspect, because I gather from that fact, as well
as from the language used at the meeting, taking it with the
qualification that Mrs. Besant has put upon it, that it does
imply a determination, notwithstanding the verdict of the
jury that this book is unfit for publication, that you will per-
sist in publishing it. The case, therefore, assumes a very
serious aspect indeed.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, I do not wish, in any way, to
take up the time of the Court unfairly. I have nothing
whatever to say, except that the ultimate decision of the
Court had not then been given ; we thought we had not got
that ultimate decision of the Court.

The Lord Chief Justice : The ultimate decision of the
Court has now been given, and the question is, what is to
be the future course of your conduct ? The jury have ac-
quitted you of any intention to deliberately violate the law ;
and that, although you did publish this book, which was a
book that ought not to have been published, you were not
conscious of the effect it might have, and had no intention
to violate the law. That would induce the Court, if it saw
a ready submission on your part, to deal with the case in a
very lenient way. The jury having found that it was a vio-
lation of the law, but with a good motive or through
ignorance, the Court, in awarding punishment, upon such a
state of things, would, of course, be disposed to take a most
indulgent view of the matter. But if the law has been
open])' set at defiance, the matter assumes a very diiferent

3i8

aspect, and it must be dealt with as a very grave and aggra-
T-ated case.

Mrs. Besant : If an extra charge is to be brought against
me, I ask that some kind of proof be offered.

Mr. Bradlaugh : If your lordships thought it right to
take into consideration the application I made to you before
the adjournment, both I and my co-defendant would in the
fullest manner undertake that during the pendency of the
appeal no sort of advantage will be taken of the indulgence
of the Court.

The Lord Chief Justice : What do you mean ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I mean if you stayed proceedings until
the writ of error was argued.

The Lord Chief Justice : I think we must pass sentence.
Have 3'ou anything to say in mitigation?

Mr. Bradlaugh : I respectfully submit myself to the sen-
tence of the Court.

Mrs. Besant: I have nothing to say in mitigation of
punishment.

The Solicitor-General : The two persons before your
lordships are the publishers of the book. Their names are
to the preface, in which they state that they intend to pub-
lish this book. This shows the importance of the evidence
as to their intention of continuing the circulation.

The Lord Chief Justice, after having conferred for some
minutes with Mr. Justice Mellor, said : The case has now
assumed a character of very, very grave importance. We
were prepared, if the defendants had announced openly in
this Court that having acted in error as the jury found — of
which finding I think they are entitled to the benefit — but
still having been, after a fair and impartial trial, found by
the jury guilty of doing of that which was an offence
against the law, they were ready to submit to the law and
to do everything in their power to prevent the further
publication and circulation of a work which has been
declared by the jury to be a work calculated to deprave
public morals, we should have been prepared to discharge
them on their own recognisances to be of good behaviour in
the future. But we cannot help seeing in what has been
said and done pendingthis trial, and since the verdict of the
jury was pronounced, that the defendants instead of submit-
ting themselves to the law, have set it at defiance by continu-
ing to circulate this book. That being so I must say that
that which before was an offence of a comparatively slight

319

character — looking to what the jury have found in reference
to the contention of the defendants — now assumes the form
of a most grave and aggravated offence, and as such
we must deal with it. The sentence is that you, Charles
Bradlaugh, and you, Annie Besant, be imprisoned for the
term of six calendar months ; that you each pay a fine of
^200 to the Queen ; and that you enter further into your
own recognizances in a sum of ;^5oo each to be of good
behaviour for the term of two years, and I tell you at the
same time that you will not be of good behaviour " and
will be liable to forfeit that sum if you continue to publish
this book. No persuasion or conviction on your part that
you are doing that which is morally justifiable can possibly
warrant you in violating the law or excuse you in doing so.
No one is above the law ; all owe obedience to the law from
the highest to the lowest, and if you choose to set yourself
.at defiance against the law — to break it and defy it — you
must expect to be dealt with accordingly. I am very sorry
indeed that such should be the result, but it is owing to
your being thus contumacious, notwithstanding that you
have had a fair trial, and the verdict of a competent jury,
which ought to have satisfied you that you ought to abstain
from doing what has been clearly demonstrated and shown
to be wrong.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Would your lordship entertain an ap-
plication to stay execution of the sentence ?

The Lord Chief Justice : Certainly not. On considera-
tion, if you will pledge yourselves unreservedly that there
shall be no repetition of the publication of the book, at all
events, until the Court of Appeal shall have decided con-
trary to the verdict of the jury and our judgment ; if we
can have that positive pledge, and you will enter into your
recognizances that you will not 'avail yourselves of the liberty
we extend to continue the publication of this book, which it
is our bounden duty to suppress, or do our utmost to sup
press, we may stay execution ; but we can show no indul-
gence without such a pledge.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My lord, I meant to offer that pledge
in the fullest and most unreserved sense, because, although
I have my own view as to what is right, I also recognise
that the law having pronounced sentence, that is quite
another matter so far as I, as a citizen, am concerned. I
do not wish to ask your lordship for a favour without

320

yielding to the Court during the time that I take advantage
of its indulgence.

The Lord Chief Justice : I wish you had taken this
position sooner.

Mr. Bradlaugh : If the sentence goes against us, it is
another matter ; but if you should consent to give us time
for the argument of this writ of error, we would bind our-
selves during that time. I should not like your lordship ta
be induced to grant this request on the understanding that
in the event of the ultimate decision being against me I
should feel bound by that pledge.

The Lord Chief Justice : I must do you the justice to
say that throughout the whole of this battle your conduct
has been straightforward since you took it up.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I would not like your lordship to think
that, in the event of the ultimate decision being against us,
there was any sort of pledge. I simply meant that the law
having pronounced against us, if your lordship gives us the
indulgence of fighting it in the higher Court, no sort of
direct or indirect advantage shall be taken of the indul-
gence.

The Lord Chief Justice : You will not continue the
publication ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Not only will I stop the circulation of
the book myself, but I will do all in my power to prevent
other people circulating it.

The Lord Chief Justice : Then you can be discharged
on your own recognisances for ;^ioo, to be of good
behaviour," which you will understand to mean, that you
will desist from the publication of this work until your appeal
shall have been heard, and will engage to prosecute the
appeal without delay.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Certainly ; until the present, I have un-
doubtedly circulated the book. Although there is a blunder in
the affidavits I do not disguise the matter of fact. I shall im-
mediately put the thing under my own control, and I will
at once lock up every copy in existence, and will not circu-
late another copy until the appeal is decided.

Mr. Justice Mellor : It must be that you vail really^
to the best of your ability, prevent the circulation of this
book until this matter has been determined.

The Lord Chief Justice : And what Mr. Bradlaugh
says, I understand that you, Mrs. Besant, also assent to ?

Mrs. Besant : Yes; that is my pledge until the writ of

321

error has been decided. I do not want to give a pledge
which you may think was not given honestly until the
appeal is decided. I will give my pledge, but it must be
understood that the promise goes no further than that.

Mr. Justice Mellor : You will abstain yourself from
circulating the book, and, so far as you can, suppress its
circulation ?

Mr. Bradlaugh : Every copy that is unsold shall be at
once put under lock and key until the decision of the
case.

The Solicitor-General : My lord, I think there should
be no misunderstanding upon this ; I understand that the
defendants have undertaken that during the pendency of
the appeal this book shall not be circulated at all. But
if the decision should be against them they are under no
pledge not to publish.

Mr. Bradlaugh : I hope your lordship will not ask us
what we shall do in future.

The Lord Chief Justice : We have meted out the
amount of punishment upon the assumption — there being
no assertion to the contrary, but rather an admission — that
they do intend to set the law at defiance. If we had under-
stood that they were prepared to submit themselves to the
law, we should have been disposed to deal with them in the
most indulgent manner ; but as we understood that they did
not intend this, we have meted out to them such a punish-
ment as we hope, when undergone, will have a deterrent
effect upon them, and may prevent other people offending
in like manner. We have nothing to do with what may
happen after the defendants obtain a judgment in their
favour, if they do so, or after the sentence is carried out, if
they do not. Our sentence is passed, and it will stand, sub-
ject only to this, that we stay execution until a writ of error
may be disposed of, the defendants giving the most unqua-
lified and unreserved pledge that they will not allow another
copy of the book to be sold.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Quite so, my lord ; quite so.

The defendants were then taken into the judges' clerks^
room, in custody of the tipstaff, and were thence taken to
the Crown Office, to get the form for the required recogni-
zance drafted and engrossed. They were then brought back
to Westminster, where they remained for an hour and a-half,
until the Court was at leisure, and they were delivered over
to it by the tipstaff. The recognisance was then read over

322

to them by Master Mellor, and formally taken by Mr.
Justice Mellor, and the defendants were once more set at
liberty.

THE INDICTMENT.

Central Criminal Court, — To wit.

The Jurors for our Lady the Queen, upon their oath
present that Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant unlaw-
fully and wickedly devising and contriving and intending,
as much as in them lay, to vitiate and corrupt the morals
as well of youth as of divers other liege subjects of our said
Lady the Queen, and to incite and encourage the said liege
subjects to indecent, obscene, unnatural, and immoral
practices, and bring them to a state of wickedness, lewd-
ness, and debauchery, therefore, to wit, on the 24th day of
March, a.d. 1877, in the City of London, and within the
jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, unlawfully, wick-
edly, knowingly, wilfully, and designedly did print, publish,
sell, and utter a certain indecent, lewd, filthy, and obscene
libel, to wit, a certain indecent, lewd, filthy, bawdy, and
obscene book, called " Fruits of Philosophy," thereby con-
taminating, vitiating, and corrupting the morals as well of
youth as of other liege subjects of our said Lady the Queen,
and bringing the said liege subjects to a state of wickedness,
lewdness, debauchery, and immorality, in contempt of our
said Lady the Queen and her laws, to the evil and per-
nicious example of all others in the like case offending, and
against the peace of our said Lady the Queen, her crown,
and dignity.

Seco7td Count: — And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their
oath aforesaid, do further present that the said Charles Brad-
laugh and Annie Besant unlawfully and wickedly devising,
contriving, and intending as much as in them lay, to vitiate
and corrupt the morals as well of youth as of divers other
liege subjects of our said Lady the Queen, and to incite
and encourage the said liege subjects to indecent, obscene,
unnatural, and immoral practices, and bring them to a state
of wickedness, lewdness, and debauchery, heretofore, to wit,
on the 29th day of March, a.d. 1877, in the City of London,
and within the jurisdiction of the said Central Criminal
Court, unlawfully, wickedly, and knowingly, wilfully, and

323

designedly did print, publish, sell, and utter a certain inde-
cent, lewd, filthy, bawdy, and obscene libel, to wit, a certain
indecent, lewd, filthy, bawdy, and obscene book, called
Fruits of Philosophy," thereby contaminating, vitiating,
and corrupting the morals as well of youth as of other liege
subjects of our said Lady the Queen, and bringing the said
liege subjects to a state of wickedness, lewdness, debauchery,
and immorality, in contempt of our said Lady the Queen,
and the laws, to the evil and pernicious example of all others
in the like case offending, and against the peace of our said
Lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.

THE SENTENCE AS OFFICIALLY RECORDED.

Thursday, the Twenty-eighth Day of June, in the Forty-
first Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria,

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE,
Queen's Bench Division.

Central Criminal Court, \ The Defendants, Charles
Middlesex. ( Bradlaugh and Annie Besant,

The Queen 2>. Charles Brad- | being present here in Court,

laugh and Annie Besant. ) and being, by a jury of the
country, convicted of certain misdemeanours, whereof they
are indicted in this prosecution : Upon reading the several
affidavits of John Rivett and the exhibit therein referred to,
and Thomas Lysaght and the exhibit therein referred to :
And upon hearing the said Defendants in person and Mr.
Solicitor-General of Counsel for the Crown : It is con-
sidered and adjudged and ordered by the Court here upon
each of the said counts of the said indictment severally
and respectively that for the offence and offences charged
upon the said Defendants in and by each and every of the
said counts of the said indictment severally and respectively
whereof they are so convicted as aforesaid, they, the said
Defendants, be severally imprisoned in Her Majesty's gaol
at Holloway for the space of six calendar months each, to
commence and be computed from the day on which they
shall severally be first taken to the said gaol in execution of
this sentence, and severally pay a fine to our Sovereign
Lady the Queen of j[,2oo each of lawful money of Great
Britain : And that they, the said Defendants, do severally

324

give security by their own recognisances in the sum of ;^Soo
each, with two sufficient sureties in the sum of £200 each,
for their good behaviour for the space of two years, to be
computed from and after the end and expiration of the said
six calendar months :

And it is further ordered that execution be stayed until
after judgment shall have been delivered upon any Writ of
Error which may hereafter be issued to reverse this judg-
ment or the proceedings upon such Writ shall have failed
for want of prosecution or otherwise, upon the said Defen-
dants giving security by their own recognisances in the sum
of £100 each to prosecute such Writ of Error, and to be
of good behaviour in the meantime.

The Defendants to be placed in the First ) p ^

Class of Misdemeanants.

London : Printed by C. Bradlaugh & Annie Besant, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.G.

CATALOGUE

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Cheques should be crossed " London ^ South Western Banh,^^

The Freethinker's Text-Book. — Part I. By 0. Bradlaugh.
Section I., Nos. 1 & 2.—" The Story of the Origin of Man, as told
by the Bible and by Science."

Section II., Nos. 3 & 4.—" What is Religion ? " How has it
Grown ? " " God and Soul.'*

Each Section complete in itself, with copious Index. Each
Number, 6d. Part containing th« whole four Nos., bound in
cloth, price 2s. 6d.

Pan II., »y Annie Besant. — " On Christianity." Nos. 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, & 10, price 6d. each. Section I. — " Christianity : its Evidences
Unreliable." Section 11. — "Its Origin Pagan." Section III. —
*« Its Morality Fallible." Section IV.—" Condemned by its History.*'
Part II., containing the whole 6 Nos., bound in cloth, price 3s. 6d.

History of tlie Great French Revolution. — A Course of Six
Lectures. By Annie Besant. Cloth, lettered, 23. 6d. Also in
six Parts — Parts 1 to 5, 3d. each ; Part 6, 4:d.

Impeachment of the House of Brunswick. — By Charles
Bradlaugh. Price Is.

The boldest indictment of the present reigning family ever pub-
lished, with an Appendix on the Civil List and the cost of wars
since the accession of George I.

Can Miracles be proved Possible ? — A verbatim report (approved
by both Disputants) of the two nights' PubHc Debate at Leeds
between C. Bradlaugh and W. R. Browne, M.A. (the official
representative of the Christian Evidence Society), Price 6d.

Gody Man, and the Bible, — A verbatim report of a three nights*
Discussion at Livei-pool between the Rev. Dr. Batlee and C.
Bradlaugh.

This is the only debate extant on the purely Socratic method.
Prica 6d,

Christianity in relation to Freethoughtj Scepticism, and
Paith» — Being the verbatim report of three special Discourses to
Infidels, by the Bishop of PeterbobougHj and also of three special
Replies, by Charles Bradlaugh. Price is.

Heresy i its Morality and "Utility, A Plea and a Justification.
By Charles Bradlaugh. Price 9d.

On the Being of a God as the Maker and Moral Governor
of the Universe, — A verbatim report of a two nights' Discussion
between Thomas Cooper ^nd Mr. C- Bbadlauge- Price 6d.

When were our Gospels Written ?— A Heplj to Dr, Tisehendorf
and the Religious Tract Society. By Chaslss Beadlaugs.
Price 6d,

The Existence of God,— A verbatim report of two nights' Debate
at Edinburgh, between A. Robertson and C. Bradlaugh. With
a Preface by the late Austin Holyoake. Price 6d.

Cromwell and Washington: a Contrast. — By Charles
Bradlaugh. Price 6d.

This is a Lecture which was delivered by Charles Bradlaugh to
large audiences throughout the United States.

Five Dead Men whom I knew when Living, — By Charles
Bradlaugh. Sketches of Eobert Owen, Joseph Mazzini, John
Stuart Mill, Charles Sumner, and Ledru Rollm. Price 4d.

National Secular Society's Tracts. — 1. Address to Christians.
2. Who was Jesus? 3. Secular Morality. 4. The Bible and
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Secularism ? 8. Who are the Secularists ? 9. Secular Responsi-
bility. Is. 2d. per 100, post free.

My Path to Atheism. — Collected Essays of Annie Besant. — The
Deity of Jesus — Inspiration — Atonement — Eternal Punishment —
Prayer — Revealed Religion — and the Existence of God, all examined
and rejected ; together with some Essays on the Book of Common
Prayer. Cloth, lettered, price 4s. Just out.

Secular Song* and Hymn Book. — A Republican and Atheistic
Collection for the use of Secular Societies and Secular Homes.
Edited by Annie Besant. Cloth, gilt, Is.

PAMPHLETS BY ANNIE BESANT.

The True Basis of Morality. — A Plea for Utility as the Standard
of Morality. Price 2d.

Auguste Comte. — Biography of the great French Thinker, with
Sketches of his Philosophy, his Religion, and his Sociology. Being
a short and convenient resume of Positivism for the general reader.
Price 6d.

Giordano Bruno, the Freethought Martyr of the Sixteenth
Century. His Life and Works. A Tract for popular distribu-
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The Political Status of Women. A Plea for Women's Rights.
Price 2d.

Civil and Religious Liberty, with some Hints taken from the
French Revolution. Price 3d.

The Gospel of Atheism. Price 2d.

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Landlords, Tenant Farmers, and Labourers, Id.

The God Idea in the [Revolution . Id.

The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of Free-
thought. 2d.
English Marseillaise, with Music. Id.

Large Photograph of Mrs. Besant, fit for Framinff,
price Half-a-Crown.

PAMPHLETS BY C. BRADLAUGH.

Jesus, Shelley and Malthus, an Essay on the Population Question

d.
2

American Politics

Life of George, Prince of Wales, with Recent Contrasts and

Coincidences

A
V/

Letter to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales ...

A
U

The Land Question, a two-paged tract for general distribution

A
U

Reform or Revolution? ... ...

A
yj

Wny €10 Men otarve r ... ... ».»

A
U

jtroveri/y, <xnu. iX/o Jcjnt/Oi/ on iiitj ircupit) ... ... ...

Labour's Prayer

Real Representation of the People ... ... ...

0
\J

The Land, the People, and the Commg Struggle

Plea for Atheism

o
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Has Man a Soul?

A
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Is There a God?

W ho was J esus

WnaH QIU. J tybUo XUdLLll ... ... ..• ...

The Twelve Apostles

The Atonement

Life of David (New Edition)

Life of Jacob ...

Life of Abraham

Life of Moses ...

A Few Words about the Devil

Were Adam and Eve our First Parents?

Large Photograph of Mr. Bradlaugh for framing

The Education of Girls. — By Henry R. S. Dalton, B.A., Oxon.

Disabilities of women and their moral enslavement the cause of all
social evils, as depriving mankind of the efficient assistance of its
better half. Female children from the day of their birth subject to
more or less adverse influences. False relation created for young
girls and boys towards each other. Pernicious training of girls
in their teens. Conclusion. Price 6d.

The Upas : a Vision of the Past, Present, and Future.— This

volume contains sketches of many well-known Freethinkers, among
others of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant. It traces the rise, reign,
and decay of Superstition. Bound in cloth, 10s. 6d.

THE

NATIONAL REFORMER,

^oxxxml of "^nismlxm anir J^mtj^owgl^t.

EDITED BY C. BRADLAUGH.

THIS Journal, established 1860, which has successfully defeated a
prosecution comnienced by the Derby Government, and carried on
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The National Reformer is the largest and most popular organ of
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The National Reformer is, nevertheless, a free platform, where
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Girardin, Daniel Manin, Adolphe Thiers.

The Freethought Publishing Company are prepared to Tender
for Printing all kinds of Pamphlets and Books, and to take charge
of and correct Author's MSS. for publication. Applications should
be addressed to the Manager, Mr. W. J. RAMSEY, 28, Stone-
cutter Street, E.C., London. London friends desiring Stationery
are requested to call at the Company's office, as a stock of Stationery
has been laid in, and all articles not in Stock will be readily
obtained.

Printed by the Freethought Publishing Company. 28, Stonecutter Street,
London, E.G.

54 "5 7

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